The White Sox nearly pulled off a comeback for the second straight night, but the Reds held on for a 9-8 win after Chicago had the tying and winning runs in play in the ninth.
It was the third inning, though, that turned this game into the kind of mess that can swallow an afternoon. The first pitch was pushed up an hour because of expected rain, but the teams still spent more than three hours slogging through a game that featured shaky pitching, a lot of traffic on the bases and plenty of hard contact.
Cincinnati jumped ahead early with a 3-0 first inning built on two home runs. Chicago answered fast.
Chase Meidroth and Randal Grichuk doubled to the left-field wall to get the Sox on the board, then the White Sox flipped the game in the second by batting around enough to score four runs after two outs and nobody on. Sam Antonacci and Luisangel Acuña singled, and Meidroth and Grichuk each followed with doubles again to put Chicago in front 4-3.
That lead didn’t last long. Sal Stewart, who had already gone deep in the first, opened the third and got the sequence that changed the tone of the game.
Davis Martin sailed the first pitch over Stewart’s head, then missed again on the next one, which led to a benches-clearing exchange and Martin’s ejection. It was more confrontation than chaos, but the result was the same: Martin was out, and Erick Fedde came on in relief.
Stewart eventually scored on a sacrifice fly to tie it, and Cincinnati did its biggest damage against Fedde in the fourth. Two singles, a walk and Tyler Stephenson’s three-run homer pushed the Reds out to an 8-4 lead.
The White Sox chipped away in the fifth against a pair of Cincinnati relievers. Light rain had started to fall by then, and Edgar Quero delivered the big hit, lining an RBI single to trim the deficit to 8-5. Quero kept making quality swings and good decisions at the plate all afternoon, even if the rest of the lineup couldn’t fully cash in.
Chicago then turned to Tanner McDougal for his major league debut in the sixth. He got Elly De La Cruz to ground out, but the inning unraveled quickly after that. McDougal walked three straight on 16 pitches, and Eugenio Suarez, who had homered in the first, picked up a rare RBI by getting hit by a pitch to make it 9-5.
The White Sox were still hanging around. In the eighth, Quero singled for his third hit, Antonacci added another single, and Meidroth worked a walk before Andrew Benintendi came through with a two-run single to pull Chicago within 9-7.
They made it interesting again in the ninth. Braden Montgomery walked for the third time, Munetaka Murakami pinch-hit and struck out, and Colson Montgomery ripped a ball 105 mph to right field that stayed in the yard. Quero then singled home Braden Montgomery to make it a one-run game, and Sam Antonacci hit a hard grounder, but Elly De La Cruz handled it to end the threat.
The pitching lines told the story all day: the White Sox issued six walks to the Reds’ five and hit three batters, all three of them the players who had homered. Both staffs spent much of the afternoon serving up breaking balls and fastballs in the middle of the zone or simply missing the zone entirely.
The loss gives the White Sox a series defeat in Cincinnati and leaves them 62-58. They head to Detroit with a 2 1/2-game lead over the Tigers, who beat the Guardians on Saturday. Detroit has done it despite trading Tarik Skubal and Casey Mize at the deadline and losing Riley Greene to the IL this week, and the Tigers are 7-3 in their last 10.
Edgar Quero was the standout for Chicago, finishing 3-for-5 with a run and two RBIs.
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A closer look at the adjustment points to a pitch mix change that could matter going forward. Castillo has leaned more heavily on his changeup, especially against left-handed hitters, and thats given him another weapon to keep lineups from sitting on his fastball and breaking stuff. For a White Sox staff that has needed stability and more reliable innings, the encouraging part is not just that Castillo has been better lately, but that the reason behind it may be something the club can count on. [Read more 🡒]