The Major League Baseball season continues to heat up as summer approaches. One of those teams that have gotten hot of late is the Chicago White Sox. The same White Sox team that had struggled to start the season and could have even landed on our losers list a few times.
Now the White Sox is just one of a few key winners around the American League for week 6 of the MLB season. After a 10-7 loss last Monday to the Milwaukee Brewers, the White Sox ran off five straight wins to round out the weekend. This included the final two games against the Brewers as well as a three game sweep of the Oakland A’s.
The team has been getting some solid contributions from a handful of players including the pitching staff. Outside of the 10 runs allowed in the first game of the week. The staff allowed three or less runs in four of their next five games. One of those starters was Chris Sale who improved to 3-1 on the season after allowing just two runs over eight innings while striking out 11 Brewers.
Here are the rest of the winners and losers around the American League.
Winners:
Avisail Garcia, Chicago White Sox: Since the White Sox have been one of the hotter teams in baseball it is easy to put a few players from their team on our AL Winners list. Garcia stands out as the top option as he currently leads the team in batting average, on base percentage and hits. The White Sox outfielder also is second in the team in home runs with four and runs batted in with 17. Last week Garcia was red hot picking up hits in five straight games including four multi-hit games. In total Garcia picked up 11 hits including two doubles, two home runs and seven runs driven in.
Mike Wright, Baltimore Orioles: The Orioles rookie made his debut on Sunday for the Orioles against Mike Trout and the Los Angeles Angels. The 25 year old from East Carolina managed to go 7.1 innings allowing just four hits, zero runs while striking out six Angels. That included his first career strikeout coming against one of the best hitters in the game in Trout.
Houston Astros: Seems like the Astros continue to play some of the best ball in all of baseball and it has shown up on our winners list. Last week the Astros managed to pick up five wins in six tries with their only loss coming last Tuesday against the San Francisco Giants. After losing their first contest to the Giants the Astros picked up the second game of the two game series before sweeping the struggling Toronto Blue Jays. Dallas Keuchel moved to 5-0 on the season with his 8-4 win on Friday while Collin McHugh moved to 5-1 after allowing just two runs in the team’s 4-2 win over the Blue Jays on Sunday.
Brad Miller, Seattle Mariners: The Mariners infielder took home the American League player of the week award joining teammate Nelson Cruz who took home the award back in April. Miller picked up a hit in all six games he appeared in last week including three multi-hit performances over that stretch. Along with the hits, Miller picked up three doubles, four home runs, five runs driven in, three walks and six runs scored. The hot stretch also helped increase his season batting average from .233 to .264 on the year.
Losers:
Caleb Joseph, Baltimore Orioles: The Orioles front office is counting down the days till Matt Wieters can return from the disabled list. While Joseph has provided some pop over the past year and half as he gets hot then goes cold for a long period of time. That cold time showed up last week as hit picked up one hit in six games. Overall Joseph record 18 at bats but did manage to drive in three runs but struck out four more times while lowering his season overage to .258 after sitting near the .300 mark for most of the start of the season.
R.A. Dickey, Toronto Blue Jays: While we are only going to take a look at his start on Friday Night, Dickey has in reality put together back-to-back terrible games. On Friday against the Astros, the Blue Jays starter gave up 10 hits over five innings including two home runs and seven earned runs. The outing moved his record to 1-5 in eight starts while raising his earned run average up to 5.76 for the season.
Oakland A’s: The A’s got off to a solid start last Tuesday picking up a 9-2 victory over the Boston Red Sox. Unfortunately for the team that would be the last game they would win for the week losing the second game of the two game series before losing three straight to the White Sox. The team’s issue this year has been their ability to score runs losing three of those four games last week while scoring three or fewer runs.
Bruce Chen, Retired: The 16 year old veteran called it quits this week after allowing three runs over 2.1 innings. In two outings this season Chen struggled allowing nine runs, 17 hits, three home runs while striking out four hitters. While it is hard to put anyone on the losers list after pitching that long in baseball but he will be leaving the game he loves something every ball player hates to do.