Nobody knew it at the time, but the White Sox's six-game winning streak ended on Martín Pérez's second pitch of the evening.
That said, with Tarik Skubal on the mound, it didn't take all that long to confirm it. Once the Tigers opened the spigot with five runs in the bottom of the fourth, the ultimate outcome of the game wasn't in doubt.
Skubal threw seven shutout innings, and he and two Detroit Tigers relievers limited the Sox to three hits and a walk. The dominance on Detroit's side offered some solace to the White Sox, because a better outing from Pérez would've also been wasted. He would've had to have been nearly perfect to give the Sox a chance, and he was far from it.
Pérez gave up a homer to Jahmai Jones with a 1-0 cutter in the bottom of the first, which foreshadowed the slog to come. He wended his way around his own error and hard contact to get out of the first, then posted a scoreless second and third before the wheels came off in the fourth.
Riley Greene opened that inning with a single, followed by an Andy Ibáñez walk. Dillion Dingler's deep drive to right field was flagged down by Dominic Fletcher on the warning track, but Zach McKinstry's blooper to left fell in front of a diving Brooks Baldwin. Baldwin's aggressive play turned a single into a double, but the way the rest of the game unfolded reflected the calculus of laying out. A 2-0 lead was pretty much as secure as a 6-0 lead, which it eventually became when Gleyber Torres hit a three-run homer to cap off the scoring.
From there, the only questions were "Would the White Sox be no-hit?" and "Would it turn into a total mess?" The Sox answered both questions in the negative. Bryan Ramos got his team in the hit column with a blooper he stretched into a double with one out in the fifth, and Wikelman González took over for Pérez in the fourth and struck out five of the six batters he faced to restore order. Steven Wilson and Dan Altavilla each struck out two in a scoreless inning, giving the bullpen a line that will be difficult to duplicate (4 IP, 1 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 9 K).
As for Skubal, he allowed another soft single to Chase Meidroth in the sixth for the only other hit on his tab. The presumptive AL Cy Young front-runner improved to 13-4 while lowering his ERA to 2.10. The White Sox did slow down his strikeout rate, as he only K'd six over seven innings, but that just meant increased efficiency, as he needed only 90 pitches.
Bullet points:
*All three White Sox outfielders converted a difficult play. Baldwin picked a 103 mph Wenceel Pérez line drive off the turf in the third, Fletcher made that long running catch in the fourth, and Michael A. Taylor successfully slid between Baldwin and Colson Montgomery to both avoid contact and catch Pérez's shallow fly ball behind shortstop in the seventh.
*Meidroth had the only other hit and the lone multi-hit game, but was erased on Korey Lee's double play to end the game.
