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Tonight's game was a bad one for fans of the Chicago White Sox and a worse one for fans of gluten. Mark Teixeira had a monster night at the plate and added a couple of nice plays in the field to lead the Yankees to their 58th win of the season.
After a relatively quiet Trade Deadline, the bats made plenty of noise against White Sox starter Carlos Rodon. A-Rod started the offensive production off with a line drive double to former teammate Melky Cabrera. A wild pitch sent him to third, as Rodon walked Tex to put runners on the corners. Carlos Beltran hit a screaming double down the line to score A-Rod, giving Nathan Eovaldi a 1-0 lead.
In the top of the second, A-Rod singled John Ryan Murphy in with the bases loaded, setting the stage for the first of Teixeira's heroics. Hitting from the right side, Tex crushed a hanging slider to straightaway center to give the Yankees a 6-0 lead. Two innings after his grand slam, he would add a 2-run homer against righty Matt Albers. It marked the 14th time Tex had gone deep from both sides of the plate in one game, taking the record back from former Yankee Nick Swisher. It was also his second consecutive multi-homer game. Tex would come up big once again in the bottom of the fifth, stopping a very hard-hit ball from Adam Eaton.
On the mound for the Yankees, Nathan Eovaldi was inconsistent at times, possibly due to long spells on the bench while the Yankees batted around. Joe Girardi let him throw 117 pitches, 73 of which were strikes. Over 5.2 innings, Eovaldi struck out five while limiting the White Sox to three runs, two of which came on an opposite field home run off the bat of Jose Abreu. Lost in the Yankees' offensive explosion was Abreu's ability to turn a 99 mph fastball around and hit it the other way into the right field bleachers. While Eovaldi's fastball and splitter have been under constant scrutiny, his slider looked like a plus-plus pitch at times. Tyler Saladino never had a chance on the third pitch shown in this gif:
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Strike ‘em out early, <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/NastyNate?src=hash">#NastyNate</a>. <a href="https://twitter.com/Headshoulders">@HeadShoulders</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Whiff?src=hash">#Whiff</a> <a href="http://t.co/OxA2r3hQua">pic.twitter.com/OxA2r3hQua</a></p>— New York Yankees (@Yankees) <a href="https://twitter.com/Yankees/status/627283401947525120">August 1, 2015</a></blockquote>
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The Dustin Ackley era began in the top of the 7th as 2009's 2nd overall draft pick grounded to second. Also of note, Adam Warren continued to struggle out of the bullpen. At times it looked like he was trying too hard to be a power reliever instead of locating his pitches, something he did very well while starting. While he has every right to be disappointed about going to the bullpen, it is important that he avoids pitching his way down the depth chart going forward.
It turns out the best White Sox pitcher of the night was first baseman Adam LaRoche, who came in for the top of the ninth and retired the side in order. Following tonight's blowout win, the Yankees will face John Danks, another lefty, tomorrow at 7:10 pm. The Yankees actually have yet to announce their starter, so it would help if Tex can continue to lead the way heading into the final two games of the road trip. Here's the box score from tonight's contest.