In the 57 years that Major League Baseball has gone one playoff series without winning the World Series, the White Sox have only had one in a season — 2005, when they won it all.
That count stands at two, and this series ended the same way as the last, with the White Sox sealing a sweep in Houston’s ballpark.
The White Sox knocked out Hunter Brown in the first inning with a four-run blitz, and when three Astros solo shots cut the margin to one, Chase Meidroth stormed back in the sixth inning with a resounding three-run blast against Bryan Abreu. The White Sox bullpen, which wobbled out of the gate, ended up pitching five scoreless innings to leave Houston as the winner.
Meidroth’s influence will likely remain the defining image of this series, especially since the White Sox barely escaped the previous inning with the lead intact.
Huascar Brazobán entered in relief of Sean Burke with a 4-3 lead in the fifth inning and quickly knocked down Cam Smith. He struck out Nick Allen to gain a foothold, but a single to Jeremy Peña brought Yordan Alvarez to the plate with no base open.
Will Venable countered with Anthony Kay, who fell behind 3-0…and still got him out, spotting a fastball to the outside corner that Alvarez cut to Sam Antonacci in left for the second out. Kay then fell behind Isaac Paredes and walked him on four pitches to load the bases. Jose Altuve, who hit one of three home runs against Burke earlier in the game, forced Kay to throw a fastball strike, but got a well-located changeup on the second pitch and flew out to right to strand three.
This provided temporary relief, but the White Sox now had to resolve their offensive problems, which stopped once Brown left the game. Antonacci grounded out with the bases loaded to start a streak of 13 straight batters retired by AJ Blubaugh and Peter Lambert, the future starter in Game 3 who ended up taking over in the third.
The Sox finally ended the streak when Andrew Benintendi hit a complete fastball for a leadoff walk in the top of the sixth. Luisangel Acuña ran for him and stole second, although the effects were negated when Tristan Peters walked four pitches. That’s when Joe Espada went to the bullpen for his top right-handed reliever, Bryan Abreu, to face Chase Meidroth.
Initially, the White Sox were going to concede the game as Meidroth showed a bunt on Abreu’s first pitch. But Acuña and Peters took off on Abreu’s first pitch, which no one on the Astros expected for the kind of incredibly easy double steal the White Sox are accustomed to allowing. This allowed Meidroth to walk away, and he still did.
First, he watched two more shots out of the zone to make it 3-0. He took it all the way on a fastball strike, and when Abreu went to the slider on 3-1, Abreu left it over the infield half, and Meidroth unrolled on it, sending it off the left field wall over the yellow line for a three-run blast that ignited the White Sox dugout and allowed White Sox fans to breathe a huge sigh of relief.
Thanks to Jordan Hicks and Erick Fedde, the blood pressure remained stable for the rest of the evening. Hicks retired all six batters he faced to go 10 for 10 over the two games, and Fedde did the same as the unlikely final pitcher.
The sweep showed how much the White Sox dominated the Astros. Brown came into this game 6-0 in six starts against Chicago, but thanks to a series of line drives and errors, he came away with just two outs in the first and trailing 4-0.
Sam Antonacci started the game by exploiting a compromised Astros defense. Houston started Alvarez in left field because of Paredes’ knee problem, and Antonacci lined a drive to his outstretched glove to left center for a leadoff double. Kyle Teel then singled past a diving Altuve, and the White Sox had a 1-0 lead in just five pitches.
Miguel Vargas followed with a bouncer to third, but Nick Allen’s attempt to smother the jumper deflected it and ended up in foul territory for an E-5. Brown rebounded to strike out Munetaka Murakami, but Andrew Benintendi picked him up with a broken-bat single to center that scored Teel, then Vargas when an ill-advised throw from center eluded catcher Yainer Diaz. Tristan Peters then hit a high fastball for a single to right center that scored Benintendi to make it 4-0.
Brown gave up a single to Meidroth and struck out Braden Montgomery to bring up ninth-batter Colson Montgomery, but a walk toppled the lineup and ended his night. This move worked, as Blubaugh forced Antonacci to step aside to avoid an even greater disaster.
From there, the Astros offense fell apart. Jeremy Peña greeted Burke with a home run to get Houston on the board, Cam Smith hit a bomb in the second and Altuve scored three in four innings by dropping one in the Crawford Boxes to make it a 4-3 game.
That said, the adage that solo shots won’t kill you has been proven correct enough. Burke allowed just one other hit and no walks while striking out eight, so even though the Astros killed his errors, there was no multiplying factor. He hasn’t reached halfway through the game yet, but even though the Sox used four relievers, everyone will benefit from the next two days off.
Bullet points:
*Final throwing line plays: 9 IP, 5 H, 3 R, 3 ER, 1 BB, 15 K, 3 HR.
*The Sox once again found production without their biggest bats, as Vargas and Murakami went 0 for 10 with five strikeouts in the middle of the order.
*The Sox were 4 for 9 with runners in scoring position, while the Astros were 0 for 2. They won in both the denominator and the numerator.
*The Sox also played error-free ball, with Vargas making up for his Game 1 mistake by stabbing a hot shot from Alvarez as the lone fielder on the left side.
*Alvarez finished the series 1 for 8 with two strikeouts.
The White Sox win the series 2-0 | Boxed Sheet Music | Statistics
Gn sports
