TA smacks grand slam, makes Cleveland pay for four walks originally appeared on NBC Sports Chicago
Generally, walking four batters in one inning is a recipe for disaster.
Tim Anderson made sure of it Saturday afternoon.
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Cleveland Indians starting pitcher Triston McKenzie was off to a flying start. He struck out all three batters he faced in the first inning and two of the first three he faced in the second. But he started walking guys. Like, a lot of guys.
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He walked José Abreu to lead off the bottom of the second. Then, after the strikeouts, he issued three straight walks to Yasmani Grandal, Jake Lamb and Leury García, the last of those breaking the scoreless tie.
Then Anderson broke things open, smacking a 1-2 pitch the opposite way for a grand slam.
McKenzie was out of the game by the time the bottom of the third rolled around. Every out he recorded was a strikeout, and he only allowed one hit. But walks will kill you, as they say, and Anderson made sure all those walks meant an early exit for another excellent Cleveland arm.
It was the second salami of Anderson's career, the first coming at Yankee Stadium in April 2019.
Anderson has been red hot since coming off the injured list in mid April. He came into Saturday's game, the White Sox first of May, slashing .346/.382/.500 in his previous 12 games. His second-inning slam was his fourth home run of the 2021 campaign and nearly doubled his RBI total, from five to nine.
Anderson is obviously one of the key cogs in the White Sox lineup, and though he's batting north of .300, he's still likely expecting to show even more at the plate, reaching the kind of offensive levels that saw him win a batting title in 2019 and finish seventh in MVP voting last season.
As for the power? There's plenty where Saturday's salami came from. His 10 homers in 49 games last season was better than a 30-homer pace in a full, 162-game campaign. He's currently on pace to hit 36 of them in 2021.
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