Because the Guardians lost to the Yankees in an East Coast day game, the White Sox technically occupied first place before Davis Martin even threw the first pitch of tonight’s game.
But when it comes to standings, it’s only about the finish, and thanks to a bounce-back start by Martin and just enough offensive support against Chris Sale, the White Sox ended today in first place as well. It’s the first time they’ve led the AL Central since the final day of the 2021 season.
“It’s meaningful to be ahead, leading the division,” Will Venable said. “At the same time it’s going to be about going out tomorrow and trying to win a ballgame and we understand we have a long way to go. But to be in this spot now is great, and I’m very proud of the guys.”
Martin danced around his share of baserunners and threatening contact to post a line full of sixes and zeroes, and he moved into a share of the league lead with his ninth win because Venable learned from Tuesday night, at least in the fourth inning. That was the inning when the White Sox scored both of their runs, and they didn’t bunt once.
Braden Montgomery started that inning with a double, and Derek Hill shot a single through the middle to give the Sox a 1-0 lead. Hill then stole second, which theoretically brought the bunt back into play, but still the Sox swung away. Jacob Gonzalez grounded out to Matt Olson, which served the same purpose as a sac bunt, and then Luisangel Acuña chopped one into the ground against a drawn-in infield, which served the same purpose as a safety squeeze since Sale had to stop it with a slide and could only take the out at first. The results were bunt-like for sure, but they shot for the moon and landed among the stars as a consolation prize.
“It’s nice to be able to get him today one time,” said Montgomery, who doubled again later in the evening. “He’s one of the greats in the game so you’ve got to find the balance between geeking out about playing against a Hall of Famer and locking in to try to put together quality at-bats to get a win. I felt like I was prepared.”
Now, did the lesson stick? Maybe not, because after Acuña led off the seventh with an infield single and advanced to second when the throw bounced away from Olson, Tristan Peters tried bunting him over despite the fact that he was facing a righty, and he popped out to third. Acuña made up for it by stealing third (initially called out, overturned on a review), but Chase Meidroth couldn’t get him home, wasting a 3-0 count by bouncing to third, where Austin Riley gloved it and fired home to foil the contact play.
That missed opportunity felt dangerous considering the Braves narrowed the margin by half in the top of that inning. Miguel Vargas let a two-out Ozzie Albies grounder dribble under an awkward backhanded attempt, allowing Jorge Mateo to score all the way from first, which is kind of help a team isn’t supposed to provide to the one with the best record in baseball.
The White Sox tightened up the defense afterward, however, and secured the series victory. Seranthony Domínguez fielded his position beautifully in the eighth, winning a race to the bag on a 3-1 putout to start the inning, then gloving a comebacker from Mike Yastrzemski to end it. In the ninth, it was Meidroth’s turn to bookend the inning. First, he smothered a Mateo grounder with an aggressive effort for the first out, and then he chased down Albies’ flare in shallow right field to record the final out before the rains came.
“”I had no clue,” Montgomery said on whether he knew Meidroth could run it down. “I was going full steam ahead. To see him run under that was really cool and to see the emotion that he displayed was awesome.”
Meidroth asserted that he had it the whole way.
With Grant Taylor throwing two innings the night before, Bryan Hudson ended up getting the save opportunity, and thanks to Meidroth, he ended up working around a two-out walk to convert the chance.
“That was second baseman’s ball,” Meidroth said. “That’s playoff baseball. You’re facing Chris Sale, their ace. You’ve got to find a way to win those games and they’re not always pretty and our pitching did a sick job to pick us up. That’s all you can ask for.”
That preserved the victory for Martin, who started and finished his six strong with 1-2-3 innings, then navigated a whole lot of traffic in between.
He came closest to bleeding in the second, when he gave up a one-out single to Mauricio Dubón, plunked Austin Riley, and an infield single to Mike Yastrzemski, which Meidroth at least kept in the infield with a diving stop. Martin rallied by working over Mateo on three pitches, and then survived an Austin Wynns line drive to right, which found Montgomery after a brief run for the final out to leave them loaded.
Several lesser jams followed. Martin gave up a pair of sharp two-out singles in the third, but Dubón flied out short of the warning track for the third out. Mateo doubled with two outs in the fourth, but a Wynns liner to center found Peters in his tracks. Albies then tried a one-out single in the fifth, but Olson lofted a fly to right, and Dominic Smith’s more threatening fly died in Montgomery’s glove in front of the fence.
“You look at what [my last start in] Minnesota was, we thought about a lot of it mechanically, but I think just physically I was exhausted,” Martin said. “The seven or the eight days [of rest] I guess now, I just realized how much maybe the body was tired. So that little blow was huge. Felt like the ball was coming out of my hand like normal. The shapes were normal, kind of like back to myself.”
Martin finished with a line that was probably more commanding than the way it actually unfolded — 6 IP, 6 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 6 K — but against a deep and dangerous lineup, it’s a job well done.
Bullet points:
*Montgomery once again took a leading role at the plate, adding another double in the eighth inning to finish 2-for-4 in his first game hitting from the right side to start.
*Sale dropped to 3-4 lifetime against his former team. He’s received a total of eight runs of support in those four losses, and seven came in one game.
*Gonzalez got picked off first on an aborted stolen-base attempt after reaching with a two-out HBP to end Sale’s night in the sixth.
*Hill tried bunting for a hit off James Karinchak with two outs and a runner on second in the eighth. It’s not out of their system yet.
*It doesn’t seem like the division lead is getting to the guys’ heads.
“The standard is the standard in here,” Meidroth said. “You want to be in first place in September. June’s great, but yeah.”
Record: 36-31 | Box score | Statcast
