White Sox clobber Phillies, take series

PHILADELPHIA — White Sox sights seen Sunday at Citizens Bank Park:

A grand slam.

A three-run home run.

A series victory against a team in the thick of a wild-card chase.

More excellent relief pitching and another solid outing from the starting pitcher.

For the Sox, who clobbered the Phillies 10-5 to take the rubber game of the three-game series, it was cause to turn up the music in the visitors’ clubhouse, enjoy a flight to Detroit and zero in on keeping a good — albeit brief — run going with four games against the last-place Tigers.

The Sox, who have little to gain in the last two months of the season except to spruce up a 48-61 record and to see some hoped-for progress from important young pieces such as left fielder Eloy Jimenez, shortstop Tim Anderson and right-hander Reynaldo Lopez, won a 15-inning marathon Friday and lost a 3-2 decision Saturday before the virtual blowout.

The 10-run outburst was welcome and rare for a team that had scored 10 runs total in its previous five games and two runs or fewer in eight of its previous 11 games.

‘‘It’s a big pick-me-up,’’ manager Rick Renteria said.

Leury Garcia gave Lopez (6-9, 5.41 ERA) an early 5-0 lead with his first career grand slam in the second, Jimenez hit a three-run homer to the opposite field in the eighth and Anderson homered in the ninth.

Jimenez and Anderson have been slow to get their swings back since returning from injuries. Jimenez is 5-for-30 since coming off the injured list, his average dropping to .235. Anderson is 5-for-25 since coming off the IL. The homers were their only hits, but both made hard contact in other at-bats, too.

‘‘I’m feeling more and more comfortable,’’ Jimenez said.

Lopez faded in the sixth but finished with three runs allowed in 5„ innings. His ERA is 2.56 in five starts since the All-Star break. He wasn’t thrilled with this one, but he’ll take it.

‘‘It was OK,’’ he said through a translator. ‘‘I had one bad inning.’’

Focus issues plagued Lopez during a poor first half, but they haven’t since the break. That wasn’t his problem during the Phillies’ two-run sixth, when he walked Bryce Harper leading off and gave up three consecutive one-out singles.

‘‘It was one of those innings, for whatever reason, I lost command,’’ Lopez said.

Left-hander Aaron Bummer (1.69 ERA) got a double-play ball upon replacing Lopez in the sixth and added a perfect seventh before right-hander Evan Marshall (2.30 ERA) worked a scoreless eighth. Corey Dickerson’s meaningless homer against left-hander Josh Osich in the ninth was the only smudge on a bullpen that had a 2.10 ERA in the Sox’ last 16 games.

Jimenez said players talked in recent days about keeping things fun and trying not to put too much pressure on themselves individually.

‘‘All I can say is, when your team struggles, everybody tries to do too much,’’ Jimenez said. ‘‘Today we went out to enjoy the game, and you see what happened; you see the results. Against a [contending] team, we took the series.’’

Keeping it fun never has been a problem for Garcia, who looked over his shoulder at first-base coach Daryl Boston on his grand slam and yelled, ‘‘I’m on the board!’’ The blast came against left-hander Drew Smyly, who had strung together 13 scoreless innings until the Sox’ five-run second.

The victory was only the Sox’ sixth in their last 22 games, but it would be a happy flight to Detroit.

‘‘Oh, yeah, especially with the last week we had,’’ Garcia said.