Fiery Lynn prevails in fight with control issues

DETROIT — Lance Lynn’s glove might be the most underrated tool in his arsenal. Aside from its obvious purpose, the black chunk of leather also provides a great outlet when the White Sox hurler needs it.

Lynn utilized the glove early and often Friday night during the White Sox 12-3 win against the Tigers at Comerica Park. Often in frustration but sometimes in celebration, Lynn powered through six innings and 104 pitches while his mitt labored to keep the game as family-friendly as possible.

While Lynn stalked Detroit from the mound, his teammates picked apart the Tigers at the plate, collecting 17 hits — six for extra bases — during the series-evening romp.

“To be honest, it was a frustrating evening,” said Lynn, who allowed three runs (one earned) on three hits but walked a season-high five along the way. “I’ve got to be a little bit more efficient and not walk that many people, but [they] bailed me out with good defensive plays and scored a bunch of runs.”

At first glance, it looked as though it would be a long night for both Lynn and the leather on his left hand. The right-hander shouted into his mitt in the first when Andrew Benintendi lost a sinking liner in the sun, mistiming his dive to give Riley Greene a double and put runners on second and third with no outs. Lynn pounded the glove in frustration after third baseman Yoán Moncada bobbled a transfer that would have allowed Lynn to escape the frame unscathed.

Those weren’t reactions against his teammates, of course, and they didn’t take it that way. They know Lynn is a competitor who wants the best for his team, and that means everyone from the front row to the nosebleeds can tell pretty easily how the game is going just by watching or listening to him.

And he really roared after firing a 94.2 mph four-seamer past Miguel Cabrera to strand the bases loaded and end that sticky 32-pitch first.

“What I liked about [Lynn] today — and every day, really — is that nothing really fazes him that much,” manager Pedro Grifol said. “He gets mad, but that kind of feeds his adrenaline. He keeps pitching. He did a really good job today minimizing damage on things that were out of his control.”

While Lynn settled in soon after — he needed just 24 total pitches to breeze through the third, fourth and fifth frames — Chicago scorched Tigers pitching to support him. Tim Anderson finished with four hits and Moncada had three to go with three RBIs. Andrew Vaughn doubled and homered during his three-RBI night, and the White Sox blasted three triples, their most in one game since Sept. 9, 2017, against San Francisco.

Chicago scored three in the first to set the tone behind a Vaughn RBI double and a two-run knock from Yasmani Grandal, then tacked on a run in the second and fourth frames on a Benintendi run-scoring triple and a Hanser Alberto RBI groundout, respectively.

Meanwhile, things were going so well for Lynn by the sixth inning that he didn’t even need his glove to muffle his reaction after he hit Spencer Torkelson with a pitch to open the frame, or when Alberto booted a Nick Maton chopper to second to put runners at first and second with no outs.

When Lynn walked the bases loaded one batter later and then walked in a run immediately afterward, though, the glove shot up to catch the brunt of his reaction. With Grifol at the top step of the dugout ready to give him the hook, Lynn knew he had to make it quick.

Three pitches later, Detroit had scored another run, but Lynn had induced a double play. Four pitches after that, Lynn fanned Jake Rogers on a curveball low and away, leaving the 6-foot-5 righty to holler animatedly all the way to the dugout.

The White Sox put together three-run innings in the fifth and the eighth, then capped the night when Anderson hit a run-scoring single in the ninth off Tigers position player Zack Short, who wielded a 44.7 mph eephus against him.

“We put great at-bats together one through nine, we rolled the ball around [and] we put it together,” said Vaughn, who leads Chicago with 34 RBIs. “Giving our pitcher a lead right out of the gate is definitely important and definitely helped throughout the course of the game, I felt like.”