The pitch selection from Guardians hurlers in RISP situations Saturday night suggested opposing teams are losing interest in testing the White Sox offense's commitment to hunting fastballs. What Sox hitters importantly defined Sunday in snapping a six-game losing streak was that they possess the versatility to also whack cement-mixer breaking balls too.
Facing a version of Guardians right-hander Slade Cecconi that looked inferior to his season numbers and first-round pedigree, Lenyn Sosa followed a Mike Tauchman by launching a 1-1 hanging slider over the White Sox bullpen to stake out a first inning lead that would vary in size, but was never relinquished.
While the blast pulled Sosa into a tie for the team lead in home runs at 14, it quickly fell into second billing for the inning. Cecconi only threw one cutter all day, evidently deterred by Montgomery nearly reaching the concourse in right field with a solo shot that left the yard at 114.5 mph.
"It's beautiful, man," said starter Davis Martin of the longest (452 feet) home run hit at Rate Field this season. "Something about a lefty swing."
"That was something unthinkable," Sosa said via interpreter. "The power that he has to hit the ball that far is unbelievable."
"That was one of the farthest ones I’ve hit in my career so I kind of watched it a little bit too," Montgomery said. "I just felt like it was a little motivation and kind of momentum for the guys. I wanted to get the guys fired up."
The quality of contact dissipated from there because it had to, but stayed sharp enough that Cecconi escaping with only five runs in four innings felt like there was meat left on the bone.
Back-to-back one-out RBI singles from Curtis Mead and Kyle Teel in the third inning staked the Sox to a 5-0 lead, but they stranded a pair of runners each in the second, third and fourth, and as a result, had to spend the rest of the afternoon working to keep Cleveland at arms length rather than enjoying a laugher.
Martin flashes the sort of stuff and pitches with a mound presence that can trick you into thinking he's been cruising this whole time rather than surviving on the margins, and surprise you with the reveal that he only struck out two and walked three in five innings of work.
His second inning was Martin's only 1-2-3 frame on the day, and he traipsed into two spots where he had to face José Ramírez with multiple runners on. But in an continuation of Ramírez's bizarrely awful season to date against Sox pitching, he jammed the perennial All-Star with fastballs for weak contact both time, and had a Kyle Manzardo fourth-inning solo shot as the only mark against him through five innings of labor.
"I was happy with the results with the kind of stuff we had today," Martin said. "You can be defensive as a pitcher and you can be offensive as a pitcher and I think that's the only thing that was going through my mind is being on the offensive, don't let them breathe. Suffocate it. Just constantly be one step ahead and keep that aggression. You're not trying to limit damage, you're trying to be the person blitzing the zone and being on top of him."
That and a taxed bullpen spurred Will Venable to bring Martin back out for the sixth at 92 pitches, which doubles for when things became competitive. An Angel Martínez ground rule double to center was the second of two hits that greeted Martin in the sixth before he handed the game to Brandon Eisert, who allowed both runners to score while otherwise performing as well as could be hoped given the lack of margin for error.
After a one-out walk to Brayan Rocchio, pinch-hitter David Fry flicked a changeup down and away for a soft two-run double down the line to shave the lead to 5-3 and put the tying runs in scoring position. But Eisert rallied, getting Steven Kwan to popup a high fastball too shallow for Rocchio to test Michael A. Taylor's arm in left, before dotting a front hip slider on Daniel Schneemann to end the threat before Ramírez could search for redemption.
Serve was held from there on out. A bloop single from Josh Rojas and a Tauchman walk against lefty Kolby Allard eventually set up Sosa to drive an outside fastball deep to right-center for a sacrifice fly, padding the lead back out to 6-3 after six innings. That served to absorb the blow when Manzardo lifted his second and less impressive solo shot to right of the afternoon off Jordan Leasure in the top of the seventh.
"Since Opening Day--even before that, in spring training--I felt like, yeah, I belong here," Sosa said via interpreter. "I'm a good player, and I know I can do the job I am supposed to do here. There's no doubt in my mind that I deserve to be here and that I am part of this."
Cam Booser's return to the active roster also doubled as his return to high-leverage, but the Sox bullpen picked the best time to string together eight consecutive batters retired. Booser's 10-pitch trip through the bottom of the Guardians order in the eighth looked only slightly more challenging than Grant Taylor retiring Cleveland's top-three hitters on eight pitches for his team-leading fourth save of the season.
Bullet points:
*Maybe this is obvious, but one of the reasons baseball is better live is the thrill of moonshots in person. With the Rate Field press box sitting right on the first base line, it provides a perfect angle to see Montgomery's first inning blast left his bat on a trajectory that felt alien compared to the countless left-handed home runs I've seen from this vantage point over the last nine seasons.
What a tank, is what I'm trying to say.
*Brooks Baldwin dropped a Ramírez lazy fly ball down the left field line to extend the first inning, popped up a bunt in the third with runners on the corners and one out and was subbed out for a defensive replacement to cap an 0-for-3 showing.
"It's not just that it's a mistake, but you know, there just needs to be a sense of urgency out there," said Will Venable. "Baldwin knows that, that's something we talked about."
*Even with the reached on error to comfort him, Ramírez's 0-for-5 day puts him at 4-for-38 with a home run and a double against Sox pitching this season.
*Tauchman, Rojas and Sosa, who drove in three, all had multi-hit days.
*Elvis Peguero is opening for Tyler Alexander on Monday against the Tigers.
