PHILADELPHIA — White Sox sights seen at Citizens Bank Park Sunday:
A grand slam.
A three-run homer.
A series win against a team in the thick of a Wild Card chase.
More excellent relief pitching and another good, if not great outing from the starting pitcher.
For the Sox, who clobbered the Phillies 10-5 to take the rubber game of a three-game series, it was cause to enjoy a flight to Detroit and zero in on keeping a good run going against the last-place Tigers of the AL Central.
The Sox (48-61), who have little to gain except sprucing up a record that turned ugly after the All-Star break as well as hoped-for progress from important pieces such as Eloy Jimenez, Tim Anderson and Reynaldo Lopez in the last two months of the season, won a 15-inning marathon, lost a 3-2 decision and won via a rare blowout in this series.
The offense was a welcome and rare sight for a team that had scored two runs or less in eight of its previous 11 games while batting .194.
Leury Garcia gave Lopez an early 5-0 lead with his first career grand slam, Jimenez hit an opposite field three-run homer in the eighth and Anderson homered in the ninth. Jimenez and Anderson have been slow to get their swings back since coming back from injuries.
Lopez faded in the sixth inning but finished with three runs allowed over 5 1⁄3 innings. His ERA is 2.56 in five starts since the All-Star break.
Lefty Aaron Bummer got a double play ball upon replacing Lopez and added a perfect inning and Evan Marshall pitched a scoreless eighth. Corey Dickerson’s meaningless homer with two outs in the ninth against lefty Josh Osich mopping up in the ninth was the only smudge on a bullpen that was boasting a 2.10 ERA over the previous 16 games.
