HOUSTON — Mike Clevinger pitched five scoreless innings in his White Sox debut, striking out eight batters before exiting after 98 pitches, and Yoan Moncada and Luis Robert Jr. homered to lift the White Sox to a 6-3 victory over the Astros Sunday.
The result gave the Sox (2-2) and first-year manager Pedro Grifol a split in their first series of the season against the defending World Series champions.
The Sox wasted multiple scoring opportunities as they had throughout the series, but got a solo home run from Robert against Luis Garcia in the fifth, and two runs in the sixth on Moncada’s second double of the game and fourth of the season, followed by Andrew Vaughn’s RBI single against Garcia and an RBI double by rookie Oscar Colas against reliever Phil Maton.
Moncada was 8-for-19 with two homers and four doubles in the series. Robert also made a long running catch on the warning track in the ninth inning, taking extra bases from Kyle Tucker. It helped limit the Astros’ damage in the ninth to two runs against a shaky Reynaldo Lopez.
The Astros, trailing 6-1 to start the ninth, brought the tying run to the plate.
It was the first double and RBI of Colas’ career. He also scored on Tim Anderson’s double to deep center field in the eighth and made a running catch in right center field to end the Astros’ fifth inning with two runners on.
Clevinger is the Sox pitcher since 2000 to throw five-plus scoreless innings in his Sox debut, joining Johnny Cueto on May 16 of last season at Kansas City (6.0), Mat Latos on April 4, 2016 at Oakland (6.0) and José Quintana on May 7, 2012 at Cleveland (5.2). His eight strikeouts are the most by pitcher in his Sox debut since Francisco Liriano struck out eight on July 31, 2012 at Minnesota.
Clevinger was signed to a one-year, $12 million contract as a free agent in the offseason.
After failing to protect leads in the second and third games of the series, the Sox bullpen converted this time. After Gregory Santos allowed a run in the sixth inning, Aaron Bummer pitched a perfect seventh and Kendall Graveman, appearing in his third game of the series, a scoreless eighth.