Today in White Sox History: April 13
Garrett Crochet keeps making entries in the first-year starter record book
1933
In the second game of the season, St. Louis Browns center fielder Sam West went 6-for-6 (five singles, a double) against White Sox ace Ted Lyons. West would go on to hit .300 that year, as well as be named to the first-ever AL All-Star team.
Despite West’s efforts, the Browns still lost, 11-7.
1965
The White Sox turned the tide so to speak from 1964, beating the Orioles in Baltimore on Opening Day, 5-3. They lost to the same club to open the 1964 season at Comiskey Park — by the exact margin. Tommy John, making his White Sox debut, picked up the save in relief of Gary Peters. John struck out Boog Powell with two on in the ninth inning to close it out.
The 1965 White Sox would go on to win 95 games under Al Lopez, in his last full season as Sox skipper. They finished in second place, seven games out.
1972
After the first games ever were lost to a labor dispute, ownership and players settled the brief strike. Two days later, the season kicked off; the White Sox may have needed a little more time to shake the rust off, dropping their first three games of the season en route to a surprise, 87-67, second-place finish in the AL West.
2008
In an 11-0 pasting of Kenny Rogers and the Tigers, both Paul Konerko and Joe Crede hit grand slams, two innings apart and both with one out. The Cheat commemorated the milestone on South Side Sox with his game coverage.
Konerko’s came in the third inning and put the White Sox up, 5-0. Crede’s was in the fifth, pushing the rout to 11-0. Konerko ended the day 2-for-4 with five RBIs. Javier Vázquez was the beneficiary of Chicago’s hot bats.
The onslaught came on a 41° day at Sox Park, and were the only two homers hit in the game.
2009
The White Sox beat the Tigers, 10-6, in a unique game in baseball history. Jermaine Dye and Paul Konerko hit back-to-back home runs in the second inning — both times reaching the 300-homer career mark! According to Baseball-Reference, no teammates have EVER reached 300, 400, or 500 home run milestones in the same game, much less the same inning or with back-to-back jacks.
2024
It was another glass half-empty, glass half-full kind of a day for a White Sox team that lost for the 12th time in 14 games to open the season, a franchise record.
Sox starter Garrett Crochet became the third major league pitcher since at least 1901 to record 30 or more strikeouts and four or fewer walks over his first four career starts, joining Masahiro Tanaka (35/2 in 2014), and Félix Hernández (30/4 in 2005). Crochet also became the seventh White Sox hurler to put together a 10-plus strikeout game within his first four career starts, and set a new franchise record for most strikeouts through that many starts.
But on this day, his teammates were held to two hits and shut out, 5-0, by the Reds. It was the fifth shutout of the club in the first 14 games of the season.