ANAHEIM, Calif. — Sometimes the at-bat before the at-bat leads to damage.
Luis Robert Jr. fouled off a pair of 3-2 pitches before drawing a walk in the top of the first inning Monday.
Andrew Benintendi came to the plate following the eight-pitch at-bat and drilled a two-run home run on an 0-2 slider from Los Angeles Angels starter Reid Detmers. Andrew Vaughn made it back-to-back home runs two pitches later.
The Sox scored three in the first, three more in the second and won their third consecutive game, topping the Angels 8-4 in front of 35,587 at Angel Stadium.
“Something simple like (Robert’s walk) opened it up for Benintendi,” Sox interim manager Grady Sizemore said. “Guys did a good job of just not giving an at-bat away.”
The collective approach at the plate guided the Sox to their first three-game winning streak since June 27-29 when they defeated the Atlanta Braves once and the Colorado Rockies twice.
“Wins have been hard to come by,” Sizemore said. “So when you can get one, you appreciate it. When you can get a couple in a row, it’s even better.”
The Sox hit four home runs Monday, two by Benintendi to give him a team-leading 19 on the season.
“It’s been fun to watch, he’s on a nice little stretch right now,” Sizemore said of Benintendi. “He’s doing it against righties, lefties — being a guy that comes through in the clutch for us in the middle of the lineup. It’s been nice.”
Vaughn and Lenyn Sosa also homered for the Sox, now one victory shy of matching the season-best winning streak of four from May 8-11 (one win against the Tampa Bay Rays and three against the Cleveland Guardians).
“We had a good approach (at the plate),” Vaughn said. “We knew what we wanted to do, 1 through 9 (in the order and) stuck to our game plan.
“You could definitely feel the energy in the dugout. We were rolling, everybody was swinging the bat well. Hitting’s contagious.”
At 36-115, the Sox need to go 7-4 in their final 11 games to avoid tying the 1962 New York Mets (40-120) for the most losses in Major League Baseball’s modern era.
Paired with the 7-2 victory against the Boston Red Sox on Sept. 8 at Fenway Park, the White Sox have won two in a row on the road for the first time since May 4-5 at St. Louis.
“It feels like we’re just playing really well right now,” starter Jonathan Cannon said. “Offensively, defensively and pitching. It’s all been coming together the last couple of games.”
The Sox built Monday’s early 6-0 lead for Cannon, who allowed four runs on three hits with seven strikeouts and two walks in 6 2/3 innings.
“I thought I did a really good job of getting strike one,” Cannon said. “I was in a lot of favorable counts. Two lazy sliders that got hit out (for solo home runs in the second and fifth) and ran out of gas there in the seventh. But overall, I was happy with everything.”
Cannon exited during the seventh as the Angels scored twice in the inning to get within 8-4.
They looked for more, with runners on the corners and two outs when Sox reliever Chad Kuhl stumbled making a 2-2 pitch. He somehow delivered cleanly near the plate for a ball, but avoided what would have been a run-scoring balk. Kuhl then struck out Taylor Ward on the next pitch.
“That would have cost a run if he wasn’t able to gather himself and throw that ball, that’s a run,” Sizemore said. “That was a big moment. That was pretty impressive.”
That’s the way it’s been going in the past three days for the Sox.
