White Sox James Shields shines with six scoreless innings

SURPRISE, Ariz. — It was only a Cactus League game, but James Shields looked about as good as has in a White Sox uniform Tuesday night, pitching six scoreless innings of three-hit ball in the Texas Rangers 4-3 victory.

Making his third start of the spring, Shields struck out six, including Shin-Soo Choo, Adrian Beltre and Rougned Odor in order in the fourth. Shields threw a fastball past Choo for strike three and Beltre went to a knee flailing at a slider.

Shields walked one and hit one batter. Shields threw 75 pitches, 49 for strikes.

The 35-year-old veteran is coming off the worst season of his career. Shields was 6-19 with a 5.85 ERA betwen the Padres and Sox in 2016.

Shortstop Tim Anderson celebrated his new contract with an RBI triple in the first off Cole Hamels and a single in the sixth.

Matt Davidson homered in the ninth, his third of the spring, before the Rangers scored three in the ninth against Dylan Covey, Jace Fry and Matt Cooper.

“To be honest I didn’t really feel great as far as my delivery but I made some really good adjustments as the game went on,” Shields said. “My bullpen session wasn’t great and early in the game I was erratic but sometimes you’re going to have games like that where you’re not feeling great going in and it turns out great.

“I made some really good pitches, and got [two] ground ball double plays.”

Shields will have two more starts before the season.

He used most of his arsenal Tuesday but the focus was his two-seam fastball.

“Getting ground balls instead of pop flies. I felt like I accomplished that,” he said.