Jose Abreu, Zack Collins Luis Robert homered, and Lucas Giolito struck out 10 over 5 1⁄3 innings to power the White Sox to a 10-4 victory over the Mariners Tuesday night in Seattle.
Abreu’s homer, his second grand slam of the season, was the 200th of his career. It came in the eighth inning, extending the Sox’ lead from three runs to seven. Abreu also drove in a run with a sacrifice fly as the Sox (3-3) won for the second night in a row in Seattle and beat a left-handed starting pitcher for the 17th time in a row, one shy of the record.
“First and foremost I want to thank the White Sox and Jerry [Reinsdorf] of course because without him I wouldn’t be here,” Abreu said through translator Billy Russo. “And my teammates. I want to celebrate this accolade with them.”
Abreu trails Frank Thomas (448), Paul Konerko (432), Harold Baines (221) and Carlton Fisk (214) on the Sox all-time home run list.
“That’s all you need to do is describe that company, that explains the greatness of the accomplishment,” manager Tony La Russa said.
Sox pitchers combined for 15 strikeouts for the second consecutive night against the Mariners, who tied the game at 3 in the third when Giolito had to labor through a 39-pitch, three-run frame thrust upon him by shaky defense. Giolito bounced back and pitched into the sixth without allowing a run, and tied Sox great Billy Pierce for sixth on the franchise list with his 11th double-digit strikeout performance.
Giolito did it with a fastball in the low 90s, two or three mph lower than his usual velocity. He attributed that to the chill in the Seattle air, and perhaps a long wait after Mariners starter James Paxton left with a sore elbow in the second inning.
“It was definitely a grinder outing,” Giolito said.
In the third, second baseman Nick Madrigal bobbled a double play ball and had to settle for a fumbling force out, left fielder Andrew Vaughn had a fly ball near the foul line glance off his glove for an RBI double and Collins, the Sox catcher, didn’t get his glove down to block a strikeout pitch in the dirt, allowing a run to score.
“Hell of an effort by [Vaughn],” Giolito said. “It was just one of those really weird, tough innings, and we were able to get through it.”
Collins belted a three-run homer against left-hander Nick Margevicius in the second inning to give Giolito a 3-0 lead. Margevidius relieved Paxton.
“It felt really good to get that first one out of the way,” Collins said. “ I got a barrel on it, and it took off.”
It was the latest bad showing with the gloves for the Sox, who made five errors worth seven unearned runs in their opening series against the Angels, losing three of four games, although an Abreu error was changed to a triple for Shohei Ohtani Tuesday. But the Sox offense made it moot against the Mariners.
After going hitless in his first 12 appearances, Vaughn got his first major league hit, a double to right-center, in the fourth. Robert’s two-run homer in the fifth broke a 3-3 tie.
Yermin Mercedes singled in the ninth inning and has hit safely in his first five games. Mercedes went 1-for-5, lowering his average to .565.
Garrett Crochet (two strikeouts), Codi Heuer (two) and Evan Marshall (one) combined for 3 2⁄3 innings of one-run relief.
The Sox go for a series sweep Wednesday afternoon (3:10 p.m., NBC Sports Chicago).
