If you’ve been watching the Chicago White Sox this weekend against the Detroit Tigers, one consistent trend we probably enjoyed was the White Sox being able to score runs in the first inning of the first three games of the season. It is likely one of the positive signs to come in what is supposed to be a promising season with legitimate chances of seeing a championship. The White Sox have started the ’22-23 season with a record of 2-1, with one of the losses coming from an odd walk-off single from Javier Baez. 

THIS WEEK: SEATTLE MARINERS (2-1)   

Following the series with the Tigers, the White Sox will head home and await the Seattle Mariners. Seattle is currently battling through a 4-game series against the Minnesota Twins. The Mariners have shown some grit to outlast the Twins in the first two close games. However, they were smacked around on Sunday, losing 10-4 with their pitchers giving up a total of six homers and 10 hits in the beatdown.

There are two pitchers the White Sox will likely face off against in the coming series against Seattle:

Robbie Ray (First game stats against MIN: 7 IP, 1 ER, 3 HITS, 5 Ks, 1.29 ERA) — The 30-year-old veteran pitcher is entering his 10th season in the league after signing a 5-year-deal with Seattle this offseason. He has only played the White Sox twice in his career, with lifetime stats of 13.1 IP, 1 HR, 2 ER and 27 total strikeouts against the White Sox.

Logan Gilbert (First game stats against MIN: 5 IP, 1 ER, 3 HITS, 7 Ks, 1.80 ER) — Logan Gilbert is a 6’6” right-handed pitcher going into his second year in the league. He finished his rookie year with the Mariners with a 4.68 ERA. He’s only played against the White Sox for two innings, where he struck out three and gave up hit.

When it comes to Seattle’s group of hitters, the White Sox will need to keep an eye out for Mitch Haniger, who’s coming off a strong start with 3 hits, 2 home runs, and 5 RBIs throughout his first three games. Seattle’s first-baseman, Ty France, and shortstop, J.P. Crawford have contributed to their offense with seven combined hits between each other. Crawford is coming off a career-high 37 doubles last season. While France had a timely hit in the ninth inning for the Mariners to help secure their second win of the season on Saturday.

The White Sox last played the Mariners back on June 27th, 2021, when they won 7-5. They are 5-5 in their last 10 games against Seattle. The three-game series against the Mariners begins on Tuesday, and while it is not official, it appears it will be the eight-year righty, Vince Velasquez on the mound for the home White Sox opener. Seattle still has another game on Monday night, while the White Sox have a short trip back to Chicago from Detroit.

This early in the season, it’s hard not to be optimistic about Andrew Vaughn’s excellent hitting through the first three games (6 RBI, 4 H, 2 HR). The offensive firepower remains more explosive than ever with Luis Robert already leading the club with 5 total hits and Jose Abreu right behind him with four total hits and two doubles to start the season. Dylan Cease was on fire Saturday, racking up eight strikeouts and giving up only two hits through five innings.

It remains a disappointment the White Sox will lose AJ Pollock and Lucas Giolito for some time, but neither case appears to be serious enough to sideline them for weeks. The White Sox will then host the Tampa Bay Rays for three games in their home field, before traveling to Cleveland for a long 4-game series against the Guardians.

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The Chicago White Sox opening weekend against the Detroit Tigers was a mixed bag with a loss on Opening Day, blowing a 3-1 lead through seven innings and losing 5-4. However, in the next two games the White Sox bounced back with two decisive victories and a strong reminder of why they are the team to beat in the AL Central.

The White Sox didn’t provide many surprises, but a few players stood out and what we saw has to be noted as the season starts to develop. Here’s a look at some of the main takeaways from the opening series.

Hendriks’ Bad Pitch

Liam Hendriks looked poised to earn his first save of the season on Opening Day with the White Sox leading 4-3 over the Tigers and one out in the ninth inning with their star closer on the mound. With a full count, it ultimately came down to one bad pitch, which oddly enough hit its desired location. Hendriks wanted the inside fastball and hit his spot, but Tigers catcher Erik Haase was sitting on the fastball and crushed it to left field to tie the game.

In the 9th, 24 of the 33 pitches Hendriks threw were fastballs, making the pitch to Haase rather predictable. Moreover, Hendriks still had a chance to force the game to extra innings but allowed two hits with two outs to cost the White Sox. It’s easy to pin the loss on the veteran closer but the outing itself is not a predicament for the closer.

Hendriks is going to be a pivotal part of the White Sox bullpen this season and will most certainly rebound from his first outing. Even he knows how frustrating the loss was considering it only came down to a poorly timed fastball. Relievers, especially closers are often defined by their innings but oftentimes it’s the one pitch that can define their games, especially in tight games.

Cease’s Strong Start

Dylan Cease picked up where he left off last season in his first start of 2022. Cease pitched five innings and allowed only one run while striking out eight Tigers in the 5-2 win on Saturday.

What stood out wasn’t that Cease had a great start, but rather how he dominated on the mound. Like many starters in the modern game, Cease relies on a fastball-slider combination to get him through games. With both pitches working in his first start, the Tigers’ batters were under his control. Cease focused on two pitches as 70 of the 79 pitches thrown by the 26-year-old right-hander were either a fastball or slider. The unpredictability with those two pitches fueled the eight strikeouts and the first win of the season.

Cease will be heavily relied upon this season in the White Sox rotation, especially with the injuries to Lance Lynn and Lucas Giolito. Cease already commanding both pitches early on in the season hints at a season where the young pitcher emerges as one of the best in the game.

White Sox Bullpen

It’s easy to look at the bullpen from the weekend as a disappointment, especially after the first game. The White Sox had a 3-0 lead through four innings but allowed two runs in both the eighth and ninth innings with Aaron Bummer and Hendriks on the mound as they lost 5-4.

It’s worth noting that this bullpen is still in a transition phase following the trade of reliever Craig Kimbrel only days before the season started. More importantly, the bullpen bounced back and was otherwise strong in the weekend series.

The bullpen pitched nine innings in the final two games of the series and allowed only one run. Notably, Kendall Graveman pitched a scoreless inning while Bummer closed out the 5-2 victory on Saturday. The White Sox bullpen remains a strength of the team and considering the short starts from both Cease and Michael Kopech, it needed to be to close out this series. With the early injuries, the White Sox don’t have a starting pitcher that can go six or seven innings consistently. As a result, the pressure will be on the relievers early on in the season.

White Sox Bats Close Out Series

The White Sox scored 4.91 runs per game last season with one of the best lineups in the game. Along with the Atlanta Braves, the batting order scored the seventh most runs in the MLB.

The lineup remained steady in the first two games, scoring nine runs combined before cruising to a 10-1 victory in the Sunday win, reminding everyone why it carried the team to a 93-win season last year.

Tim Anderson returned to the lineup after serving his two-game suspension and the leadoff hitter provided three hits with five total bases. In the back half of the lineup, Andrew Vaughn provided stability with a three-run home run to put the game out of reach. Vaughn was filling in for AJ Pollock and not only added power, but made his case to stay in the everyday lineup as a versatile player.

The White Sox proved over the weekend that they have a powerful lineup, but also that they have a deep batting order as well. It will fuel the team in the brutal months of April and May that are ahead of them.

Other White Sox Notes from the Series

Despite being only the first series in a long 162-game season, there was more than enough action that took place in Detroit over the weekend:

AJ Pollock had four hits in seven plate appearances before leaving Saturday’s game with a hamstring injury and then being placed on paternity leave. Quite the weekend for Pollock indeed.
Lucas Giolito pitched four scoreless innings in the opener with six strikeouts. Unfortunately, Giolito will miss at least the next two starts with an abdominal strain.
Michael Kopech pitched four innings in the series finale, allowing only one run with three strikeouts. Every Kopech start is watched with bated breath by the team and fans alike.

The White Sox will play their home opener on Tuesday against the Seattle Mariners, who wrap up a 4-game series with Minnesota on Monday. The series will only continue to test the roster powering through the opening week of the season as the White Sox hope to continue to use the month to solve the unanswered questions for the roster.

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There’s an unwritten but steadfastly followed rule for NHL coaches, young and old, to never criticize — and certainly to never blame a loss on –their goaltender.

Derek King did his best to follow that rule Sunday after the Blackhawks’ 6-4 loss to the Stars — their seventh consecutive defeat –but he couldn’t completely skirt around the struggles of starter Kevin Lankinen.

“We could’ve used a couple stops here and there — and I’m sure the goalies feel the same way — but I’ll never throw goalies [under the bus] or anything,” King said. “We need to be better in front of them, I guess.”

“He was just off, that’s all,” he added later. “He was having an off night, just like some of our players have had off nights. It’s just magnified with the goalie, because he’s the last resource defending.”

Lankinen, to his credit, has avoided completely cratering at any point this season. Every awful stretch has been countered by a respectable stretch. Since his embarrassing third-period meltdown March 28 against the Sabres, for example, he’d gone three consecutive games with a save percentage of .905 or better, including some overtime heroics against the Coyotes and a stellar 60-minute effort against the Kraken.

But if alternating awful and respectable stretches doesn’t sound like an effective formula for season-long success, that’s because it isn’t. Lankinen has won just four of 22 starts, with no thanks to the team in front of him, and now sports an .886 save percentage (after entering the day at .890).

He exited Sunday –replaced by Collin Delia at the second intermission — having allowed five goals on 20 shots, and four of them were probably stoppable. Jamie Benn scored off a juicy rebound in front, Roope Hintz slid a relatively slow shot past Lankinen along the ice and Jason Robertson took advantage of him twice, first when Lankinen lost track of his net and the puck and later when Lankinen was simply beaten by a clean shot.

“He’s played well,” King said. “He has kept us in games and not [been] rewarded. And tonight, it just wasn’t his night.”

Hungry Katchouk

Boris Katchouk’s first takeaway about Chicago, his new home, is the food selection.

“I could go to a new restaurant every day of the season,” he joked Sunday pregame. “It’s a cool city, for sure.”

Katchouk arrived with little in the way of expectations. He has adjusted perhaps slower than former Lightning teammate Taylor Raddysh has, but on Sunday he finally earned his first goal — and first point –with the Hawks, blasting a one-timer past Stars goalie Jake Oettinger.

“It has been up and down,” he said. “There’s some good games but there’s also some bad games, but I expected that. I’m just coming into each and every game and trying to put my best foot forward. I’m not here to score a ton of goals or anything like that. I’m here to play a 200-foot game.”

The new-look fourth line of Katchouk with Reese Johnson and MacKenzie Entwistle was surprisingly yet clearly the Hawks’ best line Sunday.

King, who’d previously urged Katchouk to focus on playing a “north-south game” with a strong emphasis on forechecking, showered them with praise.

“They were outstanding,” he said. “That’s good for them. They had a job; we talked to them about how they had to play; [and] they played it to a ‘T.'”

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MINNEAPOLIS – Take the emotions out of it.

Take the record against elite teams, the quality of play since the All-Star Break, all the outside noise of what this Bulls team can’t do, and “flush that sh–down the toilet.”

That was the message from veteran Tristan Thompson with the regular season now in the rear view mirror.

“You have to,” Thompson said on Sunday. “You don’t flush all that sh–down the toilet now … next week is the final exam. Nothing else that’s happened to this point matters. If you let it, you’re in trouble.”

Besides being suddenly well-versed in plumbing issues, Thompson also has an NBA championship ring on the resume. He’s not alone, either. Alex Caruso collected a ring with the Lakers, and coach Billy Donovan has heard “One Shining Moment” a few times when he was coaching at the University of Florida.

There’s title pedigree in the Bulls locker room.

But there’s also reality.

As much as the veterans with playoff experience have been trying to will this group out of the rut they endured the last few months, words and stories about what happened in 2016 only carry so much weight.

The reality?

That carries scars.

The one that stands out the most, directly on the forehead of this team is the 1-20 record this season against real NBA contenders in Milwaukee, Miami, Philadelphia, Boston, Memphis, Phoenix and Golden State.

The only win over that group came against the Celtics, but that was way back on Nov. 1. As a matter of fact, the last time the Bulls beat a team that was currently sitting with a .600 winning percentage or better came on Nov.10, when they beat Dallas.

Against the top four teams from both conferences the Bulls were an embarrassing 2-21 combined.

The other reason there’s so much doom and gloom hovering over them is not only have elite teams beaten the Bulls, but in most cases, especially the last month, they’ve taken them out to the woodshed.

A team’s best basketball is supposed to be played in April, leading into the playoffs. The Bulls have worked backwards, seemingly playing their best basketball around the holidays and then falling straight on their faces.

So how does Thompson expect this group to be able to block out all the negative noise from the outside, forget the 23 games against the Association’s elite, and become a threat in the postseason?

It’s in the details.

“The preparation for the playoffs is more detail-oriented than anything else,” Thompson said. “It’s not so much physical. Just pay attention to the details. The details is what’s going to be the difference between allowing a team to go on an 8-0 run against us or they score two baskets and you get a big stop. That kind of stuff comes down to the details of knowing the guys you are guarding, the plays you’re running, and how can you blow all that up and make it tough for them.”

A message that coach Billy Donovan has been preaching for weeks, now hoping that it sinks in at some point over the next five days.

“One of the things I’ve been talking about since really coming out of the All-Star Break is the details of the concentration and the focus,” Donovan said. “Whether that’s not giving up second-chance opportunities, whether it’s having an understanding that the other team is in the bonus and not giving silly fouls to get them to the free throw line, not communicating in transition … sometimes in the regular season you can get by with that, but when you’re playing the level of teams you’re playing [in the postseason], there’s no slippage there. That’s the thing I’ve been trying to hammer home with them.”

Time to find out if it resonates. Final exam week is here.

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DETROIT — Michael Kopech’s first start as a certified member of the White Sox starting rotation lasted four innings Sunday.

Four innings that never meant so much.

“Today was important to me,” Kopech, finally a starter now after serving an apprenticeship of sorts as reliever last season. “I may have put a little bit extra pressure on myself because it was important to me.”

Kopech talked to his father on the phone for two hours the night before, which helped him find the right mindset before he allowed a run on two hits and two walks while striking out three Tigers in a 10-1 victory at Comerica Park.

“And I always am thinking about my son and putting myself in a position where I can do more to support his life,” he said. “Today was a big day for me.”

It was also big for the Sox in the context of Kopech building up length after a shortened spring training and shaking off his lackluster final Cactus League start. Kopech threw 69 pitches, 41 for strikes, adjusted on the fly and touched 97 mph in a more than acceptable and certainly reassuring outing.

While Tim Anderson set the tone with a double on the first pitch, Kopech set it on the mound before Kyle Crick, Kendall Graveman, Matt Foster and Tanner Banks, a 30-year-old lefty in his major league debut, combined for five hitless relief innings. Banks covered the last two innings and struck out four.

With Lance Lynn and Lucas Giolito sidelined by injuries, the Sox need Dylan Cease and Kopech for heavier lifting as the top two arms in the rotation. Vince Velasquez starts the home opener Tuesday against the Mariners and Dallas Keuchel goes Wednesday. Thursday is TBA.

“Everybody’s an option,” pitching coach Ethan Katz said. “We’ve got some guys that are not here as possible options, guys that are in the clubhouse as options. We’re just going to have to be creative and try to weather this storm and find matchups that best suit the other team’s lineup and kind of work off of that.”

Giolito (abdominal strain) has not landed on the injured list yet but might when the Sox return home Tuesday.

Reynaldo Lopez will stay in the bullpen at least until reliever Joe Kelly is ready to pitch, probably by the end of the month. Cease could work on four days rest Thursday but an extra day is preferred. Perhaps Banks, who has starting experience in the minors, will get a start.

Johnny Cueto is also on the horizon. Katz knows the former All-Star, signed to a $4.2 million minor league contract, from when both were with the Giants. Cueto needs to build up innings at Triple-A Charlotte first.

Being in shape will not bean issue, Katz said.

“When he’s ready he’ll be banging on the door and we’re going to be banging on the door at Triple-A to know when he’s ready,” Katz said.

Kopech looked more than ready following a side session with Katz Friday in which he cleaned up some minor delivery glitches. He figures to go deeper next time out.

“I really liked being able to get through four especially when the bullpen has been heavy this series,” Kopech said.

Tim Anderson had three hits including two doubles, Andrew Vaughn drove in four runs with two hits including his second homer of the series and Jose Abreu drove in two runs with three hits including a double. Abreu scored three runs.

“The most impressive thing we did was to get our heart broken and come out the next two days and play and get wins,” La Russa said.

“We have a real confidence that the chemistry, the environment, the leadership in that clubhouse is going to be outstanding. Good times and tough times. That will not be our issue. Our issue is going to be making sure we can plug in the gaps until we get some pitching back. We’ve got two guys out. Having guys step up and get it done, that’s our issue.”

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Sometimes it’s good to spend money.

Seiya Suzuki and Marcus Stroman showed that in the Cubs’ 5-4 loss Sunday to the Brewers. Combined, the Cubs shelled out more than $170 million to snag the two players to help them try to compete while refurbishing the organization.

Even though they squandered a chance to complete a season-opening sweep,the Cubs got strong returns on their offseason investments Sunday.

Suzuki, who joined the Cubs on a five-year, $85 million deal after leaving Japan’s Hiroshima Toyo Carp, hit a three-run home run in the opening inning off Milwaukee’s Freddy Peralta for his first big-league homer. The Cubs also had to pay a $14.625 million posting fee to acquire the 27-year-old Suzuki, one of the most coveted position players to leave Japanese baseball for North America.

Stroman, 30, was inked right before the lockout to a three-year, $71 million contract. Making his Cubs debut Sunday, Stroman went five innings, allowing one run and two hits, with the only blemish coming on Willy Adames’ third-inning solo home run.

Stroman left with a 3-1 lead, but reliever Jesse Chavez surrendered a Christian Yelich run-scoring double and Rowdy Tellez’s two-run home run in the sixth to give the Brewers a 4-3 advantage. Thanks to two wild pitches from Milwaukee reliever Jake Cousins, the second bringing in Clint Frazier, the Cubs tied the game in the bottom of the sixth.

The Brewers went back ahead in the seventh on Mike Brosseau’s pinch-home run off the Cubs’ Daniel Norris. With two outs and Nico Hoerner on third, the Cubs had a chance to tie in the bottom of the inning, but Jonathan Villar dove into first after hitting a chopper to second and was narrowly out.

Before the game, Cubs manager David Ross said Stroman’s laid-back personality stands out. But at the same time, Ross mentioned Stroman’s preparation, work ethic and routine.

“I’m not going to compare the two, but when Jon [Lester], you first get around him and see they come into work and it’s work first and then I’m going to go into being kind of a teammate,” Ross said. “This guy comes in, gets his work done. He’s diligent about what he wants to do with his preparation and then he goes into being a teammate.”

The six-year, $155 million contract the Cubs gave Lester in December 2014 signaled the franchise was ready to compete after the Theo Epstein-led rebuild. And though Lester was gone by then, the era his deal kicked off ended during last summer’s firesale when the Cubs dealt away Kris Bryant, Javier Baez and Anthony Rizzo.

Famously, the Cubs didn’t re-sign those core members of their 2016 champion, and are now attempting to construct their next contender.

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