Vargas Goes 4-5 With Two Bombs as CHW Rolls Detroit 9-5

Miguel Vargas went 4-for-5 with 2 home runs, 3 RBI, and 3 runs scored to pace Chicago's 9-5 win over Detroit on Friday night. The White Sox needed every bit of it — Detroit briefly seized control before Chicago's fourth inning turned the entire game on its head.

The early story looked like it belonged to Detroit. Malgeri's 2-run shot to left center in the second — 375 feet, Torkelson scoring — swung the home win probability from 35% to 58% and put Detroit up 2-1. A Valencia double in the third pushed it to 3-1, and Chicago's start from Jose Urquidy was unraveling fast: 3.2 innings, 5 hits, 3 earned runs before the hook came out.

Then the fourth inning happened, and it happened all at once. Peters launched a 379-foot shot to right center to tie it at 3. One batter later, Murakami went 392 feet to right to put Chicago ahead. The inning wasn't close to done — Montgomery followed with a triple to center that scored both Vargas and Benintendi, and suddenly it was 6-3 Chicago. Three lead changes, three home runs, and a triple, all in the same frame. The story of the night was that fourth inning; it was the kind of burst that doesn't just change a score, it changes a dugout.

Chicago's bullpen — Newcomb, Hudson, and Taylor — combined to throw 4.0 innings of one-hit, zero-earned-run ball after Urquidy's rocky start, which looks like the real reason this win held up. Vargas made sure of the margin anyway, going deep to left in the sixth (392 feet, Murakami scoring) to push it to 8-3, then adding a solo shot to left center in the eighth — 397 feet — for the final 9-5 cushion. Malgeri did his best to keep Detroit relevant, adding a solo homer in the seventh to go with his two-run shot in the second, finishing 2-for-4 with 2 HR and 3 RBI. Torres chipped in 2-for-4 with an RBI. But Detroit's offense appeared to run out of answers once Chicago's bullpen settled in, and a two-run deficit became a four-run loss. Montgomery (3-for-5, 3 RBI) and Peters (3-for-5, HR, 2 RBI) gave Chicago three hitters with multi-hit nights alongside Vargas, which appears to be more than enough firepower to absorb a shaky starting pitching performance and still walk away comfortable.