Davis Martin struggled in his first outing back with Chicago, and Colson Montgomery mashed his first career home run
The win streak has officially come to an end, folks, as the White Sox (36-66) fell to the Rays (53-49) in one-run fashion (as they do), 4-3. After a tough second inning, the South Siders actually out-hit Tampa Bay in the end (six compared to five), but five walks killed the Sox, whereas the Rays’ pitching staff only walked one the entire game.
Drew Rasmussen had a solid first few innings before the Good Guys shook him up a bit in the fourth. Rasmussen struck out five of nine South Siders while facing the minimum number of batters in the first three innings, but the Sox started to make him work with 21 pitches thrown in the second compared to 12 and 10 in the first and second innings, respectively.
Davis Martin was also strong in his first inning back with Chicago, and worked through the first three Tampa Bay batters in order. He threw 15 pitches with nine for strikes, including striking out their best hitter, Jonathan Aranda.
The second inning, however, was the problem frame. Martin struggled with his control quite a bit and walked the first two batters he faced, setting a negative tone right off the bat (pun intended). Martin was able to force a ground out, but he walked his third batter of the inning, to none other than old Sox pal, Matt Thaiss. With all of the free passes, the Rays ended up scoring four tallies with just one hit — a two-run single from José Caballero. To make matters worse, one of the four runs was balked in.
The rest of the outing was much better for Martin, and he got back on track for his remaining three innings, though he ended up throwing 46 of his 76 pitches for strikes (60%). The righthander ultimately finished his five-inning outing with four runs (three earned) given up on three hits, along with four walks and three strikeouts. Things got dicey for a second in the bottom of the fifth as Caballero singled to start the inning, but was thrown out at second while attempting to steal after the safe call on the field was overturned. The reversed call was thanks to a beautiful tag from Chase Meidroth, who slipped his glove right in front of Caballero’s hand as he was sliding into the base. That was the only baserunner that Quero was able to throw out; however, he was just 1-for-4 catching runners stealing in the game.
Davis Martin’s second inning might have rubbed off on Rasmussen for the fourth as Mike Tauchman led off the inning with a double into the right-center gap, finally putting a hit on the board for the White Sox. Chase Meidroth followed that up with an RBI single for the first run of the game.
Andrew Benintendi kept it rolling with a base hit, and Miguel Vargas battled through a tough at-bat to load the bases up after a walk. It was a true team effort, as Quero poked a fly ball just far enough to score the second run on a sacrifice fly. It would take 32 pitches for Rasmussen to make it out of the fourth, but not without a rally from Chicago to cut the lead in half, 4-2.
The mini comeback triggered a pitching change for the Rays in the fifth, and Edwin Uceta completely shut down the South Siders for two innings. He struck out the side in the fifth for three of his four Ks on the day, and gave up just one hit to Andrew Benintendi.
The White Sox showed a bit more life in the seventh, as Colson Montgomery went deep for his first big league home run! And it was crushed for a no-doubter.
Tyler Alexander and Mike Vasil manned the bullpen, and both were excellent in their three innings of work. Alexander gave up just two hits in his two frames while striking out four, and he began the eighth, but it might have been better had Vasil just started the inning. He entered the contest with one base runner but was able to strike out the hot-hitting Yandy Díaz before intentionally walking Jonathan Aranda to put two runners on with just one out. Vasil worked right out of it, thankfully, and kept the White Sox in position to tie the game or take the lead, while maintaining a solid 2.53 ERA.
Unfortunately, the Rays’ bullpen was just as efficient, and tying or taking the lead is sadly not what happened. Hit merchant Mike Tauchman tried to get something going in the eighth with a single to left, but Caballero stole a base hit from Meidroth on a diving play up the middle to squash any momentum the South Siders had started to brew.
Outside of the Tauchman hit, Chicago didn’t get another for the rest of the game, and fell completely flat in their last at-bats in the top of the ninth. Miguel Vargas battled to a full count once again, but popped out to the third baseman, and Edgar Quero softly grounded out to follow that up. Montgomery came up with two outs and down just one run, but the magic of the win streak wore off, and reality struck, as Colson grounded out to first base to end the game.
It’s the White Sox, so the win streak was bound to end at some point, but it was fun while it lasted! Let’s hope they can start up another one tomorrow ahead of the Crosstown Classic this weekend.