KANSAS CITY, Mo. — You don’t get to be 10-2 against a superior team without a little good fortune to accompany your solid pitching.
John Danks received plenty on Friday night against the Kansas City Royals.
Not only did the lefty work through plenty of hard early contact, his offense supplied a bunch of its own in a 12-1 White Sox win over the Royals at Kauffman Stadium. Tyler Flowers, Adam Eaton and Jose Abreu all homered and the White Sox rapped out 17 hits, including four by Alexei Ramirez, while Danks had his second complete game of the season.
“I’ve always enjoyed coming here,” Danks said. “This is one of my favorite cities we go to over the course of the summer. I don’t know. I’ve spent a lot of time in this ballpark. I guess there is a certain level of comfort there, but that’s a pretty good team over there. It’s certainly not fun. I know I’ve had some success, some coincidence, some catching some breaks, but it’s still not a fun game to try to maneuver through that lineup.”
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Danks made a three-run lead look a little tenuous early on.
Working in the bottom of the second, Danks, who has a 2.57 ERA in 20 starts against the Royals, needed several sterling plays from his defense.
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Tyler Saladino — who had two RBI singles — made a stellar diving stop on a Jonny Gomes grounder to start the inning that drew applause from Ramirez.
“I always try to cheer and celebrate when one of the guys does something good,” Ramirez said through an interpreter.
Salvador Perez lined out hard to Avisail Garcia, whose RBI single in the first put the White Sox ahead 1-0. Danks surrendered a two-out double and it looked as if the Royals might score on Paulo Orlando’s single before Melky Cabrera easily threw Cheslor Cuthbert out at home to end the inning.
“I definitely feel like I was out of whack,” Danks said. “I was able to pitch out of a couple of jams, and I definitely had some nice plays made behind me, which saved the day.”
Though he yielded a few more hard-hit balls, Danks got into a groove starting with an 11-pitch frame in the third. He went on to retire 17 of the next 18 batters he faced before he gave up a run in the ninth.
The White Sox offense kicked into a higher gear of its own in the fourth inning against Kris Medlen. Ramirez and Carlos Sanchez each had one-out singles before Flowers worked the count and hammered a three-run homer to make it 6-0.
Flowers fouled off three 2-2 pitches before he homered.
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“I just tried to battle,” Flowers said. “Runners on second and third, less than two outs, hoping he would leave something up in the zone to at least get a sac fly. I was able to hit it pretty good and it got out. It was nice reward for trying to do the right thing and get the job done in that situation.”
The White Sox added a run in the sixth on Saladino’s two-out RBI single and scored five times in the eighth inning against Jeremy Guthrie.
Saladino had an RBI single, Eaton blasted a three-run homer, his 11th, and Abreu crushed a solo shot 433 feet to center.
The three homers are the most by the White Sox at Kauffman Stadium in a game since 2012, when they did it twice.
Eaton went 4-for-5 while Ramirez finished 4-for-4. Abreu and Flowers each had two hits as did Saladino.
“Anything you hit kind of fell in,” White Sox manager Robin Ventura said. “A good feeling all the way around and Johnny threw well. He was throwing strikes and (anything hit hard was) at somebody. It was one of those nights for us.”