White Sox beat Astros as Grant Taylor delivers, Houston bullpen implodes in first wild-card game
Two bullpen plays went in. One of them disintegrated almost immediately.
Game 1 of the American League Wild Card Series between the Chicago White Sox and Houston Astros did not feature the caliber of pitching typically associated with a postseason opener. Not only were these two teams the weakest to make the playoffs, but both clubs also exhausted their top arms last weekend as they continued to chase division titles. Astros ace Hunter Brown and White Sox innings leader Sean Burke both pitched Friday, making Tuesday’s turnaround too close.
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As such, it was two rookies, Houston right-hander AJ Blubaugh and Chicago left-hander Hagen Smith, who faced off as the de facto starting pitchers in Game 1. They served as the opening acts for a parade of relievers to follow, as both undermanned clubs searched for the 27 outs needed to start their postseason run on the right foot. The White Sox emerged victorious, winning the first game by a score of 6-3.
Unfortunately for Houston, the bullpen door had to open even sooner than expected. Blubaugh lost the strike zone in the top of the first inning, sending the Astros’ mound strategy spiraling from the start. Blubaugh – who led major league relievers in innings pitched during the regular season, with a total of 96 frames in 64 appearances, but was making his first start of the year – walked three of the five batters he faced and recorded only two outs before being replaced by left-hander Bryan King. Before that, a throwing error by first baseman Christian Walker allowed leadoff lead Sam Antonacci (who walked) to reach third base and eventually score on a Munetaka Murakami sacrifice fly that gave Chicago a 1-0 lead.
It was a sloppy start for the Astros, with 81 wins, the worst division winner in modern baseball history.
King escaped early in Game 1 with the Astros trailing only 1-0, but he struggled to return to the mound. Five straight Chicago batters opened the second inning, a sequence that included a two-RBI single from Antonacci. Once again, Astros manager Joe Espada had to make a pitching change before he wanted to, bringing in another rookie, right-hander Miguel Ullola, to clean up the mess. Ullola managed to keep the score at 3-0, but the damage was already done and the Astros’ bats were making minimal progress in getting their act together.
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Chicago’s bullpen journey got off to a much smoother start thanks to Smith, who emerged over time as a valuable weapon over multiple innings. The fifth overall pick in 2024 — these White Sox were 27-71 the day he was drafted — Smith was selected with the idea that he might one day start a postseason game, once the Sox launched out of their deep rebuild. This was probably not quite the circumstances envisioned by the organization; Smith still has a lot to prove to become a reliable starting pitcher in the major leagues. But the 23-year-old rose to the occasion on Tuesday, delivering three scoreless innings, including coaxing a pair of harmless groundouts from AL MVP favorite Yordan Alvarez.
Shortly after Smith left the mound for the third time, the White Sox got their biggest swing of the game from Colson Montgomery. The 24-year-old shortstop was batting ninth for Chicago, falling to the bottom of the batting order after finishing the regular season on a miserable 4-for-62 skid that saw him break the MLB record for strikeouts in a season, with 227.
But Montgomery has titanic power as a southpaw. He was dormant during his brutal slump, but he produced 31 homers before that, making him a particularly dangerous threat at the bottom of Chicago’s lineup. And starting the fourth, Montgomery reminded everyone of his prodigious pop, crushing an 0-2 fastball up and away from Ullola to center field immediately for a 432-foot solo homer that made the score 4-0 for the White Sox.
From there, Chicago’s ride to the finish was a bit bumpy, giving the ultra-young roster its first taste of the nerve-wracking nature of postseason baseball. Nelson Velazquez got the Astros on the board in the fifth with a two-run homer off Sean Newcomb that made it 5-2, but Chicago responded with an insurance run a few innings later, when left-hander Bennett Sousa — Houston’s sixth pitcher — uncorked a wild pitch that allowed Murakami to race home from third.
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The Astros produced a little more pressure in the eighth inning – a Jose Altuve RBI infield single with two outs made the score 6-3 – but White Sox right-hander Grant Taylor broke through the jam with a nasty strikeout of Yainer Diaz to strand two runners.
Taylor returned for the ninth and worked around a leadoff walk to cap off an impressive seven-out save, finishing with 54 pitches – the most pitches of his major league career and the most he’s thrown since throwing 59 in Double-A on April 16, 2025. It was quite an effort from Chicago’s best bullpen arm and one worthy of scoring a Game 1 win, although that likely makes him unavailable for Game 2 on Wednesday.
The White Sox won’t be alone in having to deal with a limited bullpen. Although the Astros’ eighth-inning rally was cut short, it was enough to motivate Espada to bring Josh Hader closer in the top of the ninth despite trailing by three runs. Hader has only thrown 11 pitches in a scoreless stretch, but if the Astros are counting on him to close out the next two games, if Houston rallies, it would mean asking Hader to do something he hasn’t done since September 2023: pitch three days in a row.
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But these are problems for tomorrow and Thursday. For now, all Houston can do is reset and hope that Brown can deliver an ace-worthy effort in Game 2 and limit the exposure of the beleaguered bullpen, whether that includes Hader or not. The White Sox will give the ball to Burke, who doesn’t have Brown’s potent arsenal but has been a steady presence at the top of Chicago’s rotation all season.
It wasn’t until Game 162 that the Astros were sure they would make the playoffs. They now face being eliminated before the calendar even turns to October.
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