Davis Martin and the White Sox (13-17) picked up a sound win over the Los Angeles (12-19), earning Martin his fourth win of the season and the team finally taking a series win at home. The bullpen was nearly spotless, the offense mashed two home runs off one of the game’s best pitchers, and Drew Romo had himself a night with his first two career homers — one from each side of the plate.
Prior to tonight’s game, righthander José Soriano had only given up one run in his six starts (37 2/3 innings),
and the Chicago White Sox did what seemingly no other team could do: score more than one tally against him. In fact, the Good Guys scored three on six hits, two of which were home runs — a solo shot from Colson Montgomery and a two-run bomb from Romo, this one from the left side.
Soriano came into Tuesday’s game, surrendering just one extra-base hit (a double), and left with two South Side deep balls to sour his start. He tossed a clean first inning, but Montgomery clearly didn’t care about the Cy Young hype, as Colson smoked one over the right field fence in the bottom of the second to give the White Sox a one-run lead, and hand Soriano his second earned run of the season.
For the White Sox, Martin was his usual self: consistent and efficient. Tonight, he was more effective than the best pitcher in baseball, allowing one run on seven hits in 5 2/3 innings, walking one batter to maintain his low walk rate, and striking out seven. The one run that the Angels scored off of Martin came in the top of the fourth after Nolan Schanuel ripped a one-out double to put himself into scoring position, and was subsequently driven in on a single from Jo Adell to tie the game up at one.
Thankfully, Martin would be back on the hook for the win as the Good Guys stole the lead back in the bottom of the fourth when Romo smashed a two-run, line-drive bomb out to right for the first home run of his major league career, 3-1. Soriano left after the fifth inning and ultimately took the loss. His ERA is still sitting below 1.00, but it shot up to 0.84 after beginning the game at 0.24. Sure, the Sox might not be good this season, but they just might be that thorn in teams’ sides with their recent offensive trends.
This game was officially trademarked as the Drew Romo Game when the switch-hitting catcher launched his second homer of the night on his next at-bat, this time from the right side of the plate, making it 4-1. As Steve Stone and John Schriffen called out on the broadcast, he is the first catcher in White Sox history to hit a home run from both sides of the plate in the same game.
Davis came back out for the sixth and got through the first two outs before giving up a base hit and ending his day there at 98 pitches, leaving it in the South Side bullpen’s inconsistent hands. Thankfully, as a whole, they were solid, and outside of one run given up in the eighth, the Angels mustered just two hits against the White Sox arm barn, who combined for six strikeouts.
For 1 1/3 innings following Martin, lefthander Sean Newcomb earned the hold and racked up three Ks while allowing just two base runners: a base hit and a walk. Things got dicey for the eighth solely because Jordan Leasure came in to pitch, and if you’re like me and over the Leasure Experiment, you already anticipated the home run that he gave up tonight to Josh Lowe. The good news is that it was just a solo homer, so the South Siders still had a three-run lead.
The bad news is that in seven of 13 appearances this season, he has given up at least one run, and four of the last five of his outings have been full of chaos, with seven runs allowed in 3 1/3 innings. On top of that, he ranks sixth-worst in all of baseball with 3.00 home runs allowed per nine innings (HR/9), but Leasure was able to clean up his own mess this time after forcing a ground out and two strikeouts to get out of the inning before anything got out of hand.
Ranking just six slots below Leasure in HR/9 is righthander Seranthony Domínguez, who came out to close the ninth inning and earned the save while securing the win for Davis Martin. Recently, Domínguez’s outings have had a similar feel to Leasure’s, but much more spotty. At least tonight, we got the elite version of Seranthony for his seventh save of the season, forcing a double play to end the inning while confirming the series win for the Good Guys a day early.
Now 6-4 in their last 10, the White Sox have actually been hanging in games and have players that are exciting to watch and easy to root for. Despite a 1-for-5 night with four strikeouts, Munetaka Murakami has still been something special, while 24-year-old Colson Montgomery continues to flash his power with a homer in five of his last 10 games.
In a wild turn of events, as of the Sox game ending, every team in the AL Central has lost or is losing, with the Guardians, Twins, and Tigers all dropping their matches Tuesday, and the Royals losing to the Athletics in the fifth inning. Might the Good Guys pick up a game on the entire division? This can’t be the same team that The Athletic ranked as the worst in the entire league, can it?
Erick Fedde will take the mound in the series finale tomorrow, making his fourth start of the season. It’s a bit of an earlier start on Wednesday, with first pitch taking place at 12:10 p.m. CT before the Sox head back out to the West Coast.
