As the White Sox reach the halfway point of their season Saturday, there’s a growing belief their best play is yet to come.
The Sox soundly solved formidable Zack Greinke en route to a 5-0 victory Friday night at Kansas City that extended their winning streak to seven games.
“We don’t want to get ahead of ourselves,” said John Danks, who pitched 7 1/3 shutout innings in outdueling Greinke, the American League ERA leader (2.00) who failed to win his 11th game. “There’s still a lot of baseball to be played. We’ve been saying all along we’re better than we’ve been playing, and this week has really shown it.”
The Sox (42-38) have won nine of their last 10, and they pushed their road winning streak to seven games — equaling their longest since 2003. They improved to 15-4 in their last 19 road games.
“We’re getting closer to where we want to be,” said A.J. Pierzynski, who hit a home run off Greinke in the second inning and is a lifetime .432 hitter against him. “We’ve been playing well for the last couple of weeks. We have to keep going. We’re not even halfway yet and got a long way to go.”
The Sox tagged Greinke for nine hits in six innings. They might have had more runs to show for their success if three baserunners had not been nailed on steal attempts in those six innings.
Nevertheless, the Sox have collected 17 hits in their last 13 innings against Greinke (10-4), who had blanked them over 15 innings in two previous starts this season.
Scott Podsednik had three hits off Greinke, including a double that ignited a two-run third. Podsednik is now batting .533 (16-for-30) against Greinke.
Rookie Gordon Beckham doubled and scored on Dewayne Wise’s single to give Danks a 4-0 lead in the fourth.
Danks (7-6) hasn’t allowed a run in his last 19 1/3 innings and has a 1.51 ERA over his last five starts. He didn’t allow a runner to reach second base until the sixth inning, when Beckham bailed him out of danger with a backhanded stop at third to retire Billy Butler.
Scott Linebrink bailed Danks out of a bases-loaded jam in the eighth when he got Alberto Callaspo to ground into an inning-ending double play.
Since getting tagged for five runs in a June 5 loss to Cleveland, Danks has lowered his ERA from 5.10 to 3.76.
“I feel better,” manager Ozzie Guillen said. “No doubt about it. We continue to play well. We have a long way to go. We’re only [four] games above .500. It could be uglier. But our goal is to play better and continue to play the way we’re playing right now.
“The ball is bouncing our way right now, and we have to keep it bouncing our way as long as we can.”
– – –
Duels gold
White Sox starter John Danks outpitched Royals ace Zack Greinke (left) by a long shot Friday night: %% Danks Greinke 7.1 Innings 6 5 Hits 9 0 Runs 4 0 Earned runs 2 0 Walks 1 5 Strikeouts 6 W Decision L %% ———
mgonzales@tribune.com
Up next
Saturday at Royals, 12:10 p.m., CSN
————
Follow your team with our team: White Sox beat reporter Mark Gonzales is blogging all season at chicagotribune.com/hardball
