Given that the White Sox had lost eight straight games -- including one where Mike Tauchman injured his hamstring rounding third when attempting to score the game-tying run -- it was understandable that the Red Sox booth saw the trip to the South Side as a get-right series.
Given that Garrett Crochet's breakout season still couldn't stop the White Sox from losing 121 games in 2024, it was understandable why being traded to the Red Sox "felt like it was the big leagues."
Given that imbalance in confidence and self-esteem, if you heard that the first game of this series was decided by a score of 11-1 because one team committed five errors, you'd probably feel pretty confident identifying the winning side.
Except it was the White Sox that snapped an eight-game losing streak with a 10-run victory, running wild on a Red Sox team that did not look particularly well prepared.
Perhaps that's the Chase Meidroth Difference™. Facing the team that traded him, the rookie will leave his MLB debut with a 1.000 OBP after going 1-for-1 with three walks and two runs scored. He's the first player to have that line in his MLB debut since Larry Walker for the Expos in 1989, although you have to phrase it that way to find the impressive company. Regarding the White Sox, he's the first player to reach in all four plate appearances in his MLB debut since ... Zach Remillard in 2023.
Meidroth was in the middle of a couple of crooked numbers that put the Sox on track to end the skid. In the second, he came to the plate with one out and drew a walk, back-filling first base after Michael A. Taylor reached on a bunt and stole second. Omar Narváez looked at strike three for the second out, but Jake Amaya whipped an inner-half Sean Newcomb cutter down the left-field line to score both runners for a 2-0 lead.
Two innings later, Meidroth shot an opposite-field grounder that skipped under the mitt of Triston Casas' weak backhanded attempt. A tougher scorer might've called it an error, but Meidroth was credited with his first MLB hit, and then moved to second when Casas committed an official E-3 on a Narváez grounder by fumbling the exchange.
Newcomb almost escaped the inning when he struck out Amaya for the second out, but Vargas came through with the game's second two-out two-run double, roping a high cutter to the wall in left. Justin Jirschele sent Narváez all the way from first, and he scored easily when the relay throw went way up the first base line.
Vargas took third on that error and scored when Luis Robert Jr. floated a bloop single to right center. Then Robert stole second and scored when Lenyn Sosa stayed down on a changeup and lined it to right field for his own RBI single.
That put the White Sox ahead 6-0, and Davis Martin could relax.
Martin picked up his first win since Sept. 30, 2022 by throwing six innings of one-run ball. He didn't throw his first 1-2-3 inning until the fifth, but he was able to slip out of the mild trouble he encountered along the way.
In the second, he got Blake Sabol to roll over a changeup into a 4-6-3 double play to end the inning (although Sosa, playing first, dropped the ball looking to throw to third for some reason). He also dealt with runners in scoring position in the next two innings, but thanks to his changeup, the situations didn't feel as fraught. He came into the start with just four strikeouts over 11 innings this season, but he whiffed six over six-plus innings, getting seven of his 11 swinging strikes on the kick change.
Will Venable pitched Martin into the seventh, when the Red Sox finally forced his exit with a double and single that put runners on the corners. Then it was Cam Booser's turn to face his former team, and although he walked a batter, hit another and threw just 12 of 22 pitches for strikes, the only damage was a sac fly to the first batter he faced -- a perfectly acceptable result when entering a 6-0 game. He can credit Vargas for smothering a short-hop on Alex Bregman's bases-loaded chopper for the third out, but all's well that end's well.
And this game ended well, because the White Sox reached double digits for the first time all season. Narváez drove in three, contributing a sac fly in the fifth and a two-run single in the seventh. One inning later, Robert reached on catcher interference for the second time, then scored all the way from first on Sosa's double to left that made it a 10-1 game. Brooks Baldwin then made it a 10-run margin three batters later by finding the hole on the left side to score Sosa. The White Sox finished 6-for-19 with runners in scoring position, a fine numerator and denominator.
Bullet points:
*Taylor had a big game starting against the lefty Newcomb in the fifth spot, going 3-for-5 with a double, stolen base and three runs scored.
*Outside of the sac fly against Booser, Sabol had a miserable game. He grounded into that second-inning double play, had two of Boston's five errors on those interference calls with Robert, and then couldn't stop the White Sox from going 5-for-5 stealing bases.
*Joshua Palacios made his White Sox debut for Meidroth, who left the game with dehydration. He struck out in his only plate appearance.
*Andrew Vaughn was the only starter to go hitless, finishing 0-for-5 with a strikeout. He had a couple of deep drives to the warning track, but he also popped out to shallow right with a runner on third and one out.
