White Sox 7, Guardians 4: Showing, losing some fight

Because the White Sox won tonight, they also locked in a season series victory over the Guardians.

Chances are that conversation will take a backseat to Tim Anderson losing a fistfight to José Ramírez at second base.

It erupted with one out in the sixth inning, when Ramírez beat an Oscar Colás throw to second base with a headfirst dive through second base — and Anderson’s legs — while Anderson applied a quick tag.

The tag might’ve hit Ramírez’s head as he passed over the bag, or maybe Anderson lingered too long over Ramírez for his liking, or maybe the Guardians remember Anderson stealing a cheap out by pushing Bryan Rocchio’s hand off the base the night before, but Ramírez pushed Anderson from underneath with displeasure before rising to his feet. The two exchanged words, Ramírez pointed a finger in Anderson’s face, and Anderson dropped his glove to square up. Ramírez responded in kind.

Anderson landed a right jab, and made partial contact with a second one, but he left himself open to a counter, and Ramírez’s handed a right hook on Anderson’s jaw, sending Anderson down to the dirt on his rear end.

Benches cleared, the bullpens emptied, the sides separated and rejoined in a few different clusters, Eloy Jiménez was limping around in an irritated fashion, a handful of Chicago and Cleveland personnel were ejected. The two sides played without incident the rest of the night, and the White Sox held on for a rocky 7-4 victory that locked in the seventh win of the season series.

The White Sox socked four homers, even if they’ll be the second, third, fourth and fifth hard hit people will be talking about. Luis Robert Jr., Andrew Vaughn and Oscar Colás all hit solo shots off Noah Syndergaard, and Elvis Andrus added a two-run homer in the top of the sixth that made it a 5-0 game.

The brawl also overshadowed a good night from Michael Kopech, who had the fastball life and command to support the heavy lifting. He ended up with more walks (four) than strikeouts (three), but the walks didn’t really pile up on him. He did walk consecutive batters in the fifth inning, but it was interrupted by a rare caught stealing to calm the traffic.

The Guardians finally scored on him in the sixth, and while he tried to resume pitching shortly after having Ramírez in a headlock to pull him away from Anderson, he gave up a single that put runners on the corners and Charlie Montoyo ended his night. Bryan Shaw allowed one of the inherited runners to score on a Kole Calhoun RBI single for a second run on Kopech’s tab, but a double play kept it a 5-2 game.

The Sox then tacked on a couple runs in the eighth when Zach Remillard smashed a single through the left side of a drawn-in infield to score the runners on second and third, which proved to be key when Aaron Bummer experienced his own control lapses in the bottom of that inning. He gave up a couple runs — including one on a third strike that hopped past Grandal — but he ended up pitching the ninth, and the tying run never came to the plate.

Bullet points:

*Andrew Benintendi flat-out dropped an Andrés Giménez line drive in the first inning, but the error was erased on an 8-4-3 double play when Robert flagged down a Ramírez fly on the warning track when Giménez was in motion.

*Robert then committed an error in the eighth when he took his eye off the ball to check the runners on a single, and it glanced off the end of his glove to allow a runner to advance to third.

*Colás made a couple of weird throws in the sixth inning, including a throw to nobody after Kole Calhoun’s RBI single off Shaw, but neither resulted in an error because no bases were gained. Perhaps it was the post-brawl adrenaline coursing through him.

*The Guardians ended up having more guys ejected. The box score shows Anderson and Grifol getting the boot for the Sox, while Cleveland lost Ramírez, Francona, Emmanuel Clase and third base coach Mike Sarbaugh.

*The White Sox snapped a five-game losing streak, by the way. The Guardians fell to 3½ back of the Twins, and they might lose Ramírez for a series or more.

Record: 44-68 | Box score | Statcast