SCOTTSDALE – Charlie Blackmon, Trevor Story and Carlos Gonzalez hit consecutive home runs off John Danks before he settled down and the Chicago White Sox responded with four homers in an 11-7 victory over the Colorado Rockies on Monday.
Carlos Sanchez homered twice and drove in four and Jose Abreu and Matt Davidson each had three hits and a homer for the White Sox, who have an MLB-high 46 home runs this spring.
“It’s fun to watch. It’s great for us pitchers,” Danks said. “These guys are catching the ball and putting up runs. It makes our job that much easier.”
Danks entered with an 11-inning scoreless streak over two starts. The lefty gave up three hits to Blackmon but retired 12 of the final 13 batters in a six-inning stint.
Rockies starter Jordan Lyles was roughed up for seven runs and nine hits in 4 2/3 innings.
Story’s 449-foot homer to left was his sixth of the spring. The prospect figures to be Colorado’s opening-day shortstop with Jose Reyes away from the team and facing domestic violence charges.
White Sox: After the three third-inning homers, Danks walked Ryan Raburn on four pitches before regaining his composure.
“It was a good opportunity, when the game starts speeding up on you and it’s not going well, to try to slow things down and get back to what we’re trying to do,” Danks said. “And I was able to do that.”
Danks threw 96 pitches, allowing four runs and eight hits with five strikeouts.
Rockies: Lyles hit his 90-pitch limit on Davidson’s runs batted in single in a two-run fifth. The right-hander has a 7.88 ERA in his return from toe surgery.
“He was a little inconsistent today, but I thought there were a lot of good things to take out of his outing,” Colorado manager Walt Weiss said. “I don’t think it was as bad as his line.”
White Sox: Alex Avila (back) hit in the cage and is expected to catch Tuesday.
Rockies: RHP Jon Gray (abdominal) is improving and has been playing catch. . Weiss said there’s “nothing new” on LHP Tyler Matzek, who’s away from the team dealing with performance anxiety.
Sanchez became the 20th player to homer for the White Sox this spring. Chicago has more than doubled last year’s spring total of 22 homers.
The Rockies optioned switch-hitting utility player Rafael Ynoa to Triple-A Albuquerque.
“Just trying to design our roster as we break (camp) here, unfortunately for Raffy, he’s one of the odd men out,” Weiss said. “Certainly not because of performance. He had a very good spring.”
The Rockies also sent LHP Brian Schlitter to the minors, leaving 38 players in big league camp.
Weiss gave third baseman Nolan Arenado the day off.
Arenado went 2 for 3 Sunday and is hitting a spring training-best .545.
