4-hit game for Madrigal as Sox sweep KC

Nick Madrigal found out how quickly baseball fortunes can turn during a 9-2 White Sox victory over the Royals on Sunday afternoon at Kauffman Stadium. That fact holds especially true when possessing the talent of the No. 4 overall pick in the 2018 MLB Draft.

Madrigal started 0-for-8 in his Major League career after arriving in Kansas City from the team’s alternate training site in Schaumburg, Ill., on Friday. The club’s No. 4 prospect, per MLB Pipeline, admitted to a sleepless night following Saturday’s game -- not because he lost confidence, but more so because of the expectations to produce his first big league hit.

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So when Madrigal connected for a third-inning single to right off of Royals starter Jakob Junis, a weight was lifted off his shoulders. He then hit three more, while just missing on a fifth thanks to a slick play by first baseman Salvador Perez in the ninth, to notch a four-hit game. Madrigal also scored the go-ahead and eventual winning run during a seven-run seventh.

“I don’t think my mindset changed at all,” Madrigal said. “I felt like I was seeing the ball pretty well -- just nothing to show for it. I tried to stay positive. I wasn’t getting down at all. Kind of just thinking it’s going to come around.

“It’s hard when everyone knows that you haven’t got a hit yet, so they kind of joke with you and the pressure builds up. Once I saw that first one fall, I felt the weight lifted off me definitely. It’s something I was thinking about, and it’s a huge sigh of relief once I got the first one.”

Not only did Madrigal’s hitting change the game, but his ability to go from first to third base with nobody out in the seventh on Luis Robert’s soft single to left set up José Abreu’s go-ahead single up the middle one out later against Greg Holland. Yasmani Grandal singled home another run, and Nicky Delmonico delivered a two-strike, two-run single to right, before Madrigal capped the rally with a run-scoring single to center.

“[I’ve] definitely been working through some mechanical issues,” said Grandal of his three-hit, three-RBI performance. “Not being able to ever face guys with the Indians and Minnesota, and even these guys, it takes time.

“You just try to make them throw as many pitches as they can, so you can see them and hopefully try to make an adjustment from there. But after still working on some mechanical issues here and there, it seems to be working."

Starter Dylan Cease bounced back from a rough season opener in Cleveland, allowing just two runs over six innings to earn the victory. Cease stranded two runners in his final frame by striking out Franchy Cordero and retiring Maikel Franco on a fly ball to Robert in center. Cease struck out four batters and walked one, as the White Sox completed a three-game weekend sweep of the last-place Royals and improved to a 5-4 record.

“We're back over .500 now,” Cease said. “Nobody was panicked. We have enough vets on the team to calm everyone down. It definitely feels better to be on the positive side of .500. The morale is way better.”

The team certainly is in a much better place now than it was after being swept by the Indians in a doubleheader last Tuesday.

"I think the first two series, it was more of trying to feel each other out, even though a lot of these guys have played together for a while now,” Grandal said. “We have a lot of young guys who haven't been in the big leagues for a while. It's almost like a brand new team if you can think of it that way. I think we're getting a sense of what we can do and how we can help each other out in different situations."