Gavin Sheets homered and the Chicago White Sox beat the visiting Kansas City Royals 2-1 on Wednesday night in the second game of a doubleheader.
It marked Chicago’s first win against the Royals this season in seven tries. Kansas City took the opener of the twin bill, 4-2.
In Game 2, the White Sox went ahead 1-0 in the bottom of the fourth when Andrew Vaughn doubled to left and Dominic Fletcher drove him in with a sharp single down the right field line.
Sheets doubled Chicago’s lead when he led off the sixth by turning on a first-pitch fastball from Royals right-hander Michael Wacha, driving it off the right field foul pole for his third homer of the year.
The Royals cut the lead in half at 2-1 in the top of the seventh. Nick Loftin singled to right, went to second on Adam Frazier’s groundout to first, took third on Tanner Banks’ errant pickoff attempt and scored on Hunter Renfroe’s groundout to third.
Kansas City got the tying run on against reliever Deivi Garcia in the eighth, but with two outs, pinch runner Dairon Blanco was gunned down by Chicago catcher Korey Lee while trying to steal second.
Garcia stayed in for the ninth and got his first save of the season. He logged two scoreless innings in all, giving up just one hit while walking one.
White Sox right-hander Erick Fedde (1-0) tossed 5 2/3 scoreless innings, allowing three hits and three walks. He struck out five en route to the win.
Wacha (1-2) gave up two runs on four hits over six innings, walking two and striking out four in a 92-pitch effort to take the loss.
Chicago outhit the Royals 6-5.
Tuesday’s game between the teams was rained out, leading to the doubleheader on Wednesday.
