The White Sox's first win of the season bore a passing resemblance to their crushing loss against the Brewers the day before, but in the end, there was just a little bit more of the good stuff, and a little bit less of the bad stuff.
While Colson Montgomery hit a grand slam and had five RBIs against Milwaukee on Sunday, Miguel Vargas hit a grand slam and drove in six. Anthony Kay came up one out short of five innings, while Davis Martin qualified for the first pitcher victory of the season. Sean Newcomb's outing flirted with disaster when he walked lefty Owen Caissie to load the bases with two outs, but it was in his third inning of work after posting two zeroes. Jordan Hicks stranded the bases loaded with a broken-bat lineout, and Will Venable only had to use two relievers on the evening.
There may be still some things to clean up -- White Sox pitchers walked four and hit a batter over nine innings -- but they're no longer winless on the season, and if they keep scoring 16 runs over a two-game period, more victories should follow.
Vargas contributed the two biggest swings of the game to make Chris Paddack's evening a miserable one. He came to the plate with two outs and a runner on third after Luisangel Acuña swung over three consecutive changeups, giving Paddack a golden chance to foil a scoring opportunity. He started Vargas off with a changeup as well, but Vargas kept his hands back and got enough of it to loft it over a leaping Otto Lopez and into left field for the game's first run.
Before Paddack could record a third out, he trailed 4-0. Munetaka Murakami got fooled by a 2-1 changeup off the plate, but his tapper to the left side ended up being the perfect swinging bunt, and everybody was safe. Then came Austin Hays, who got ahead 2-0 before fouling off a hittable 2-1 sinker and an elevated sweeper to even the count. Paddack then tried to blow a 95 mph fastball by him, but Hays lifted his barrel and redirected the pitch just over the right field wall for a three-run homer and a 4-0 lead.
Vargas then one-upped Hays an inning later, even though the White Sox tried to play for one run when Edgar Quero bunted over the runners after a pair of singles. That risked asking too much of Acuña once again, but Paddack missed badly with three pitches, with the third one hitting Acuña's elbow armor to load the bases for Vargas.
Just like Hays, Vargas got ahead 2-0 before getting a little antsy on a changeup he nubbed foul. He recovered to take a sweeper for a 3-1 count, which forced Paddack to come into the zone. Paddack tried to get away with a changeup for a strike, but it was a hanger, and Vargas put a hurt on it, crushing it some 402 feet to left for the White Sox's second grand slam in as many days.
Vargas' sixth RBI in the sixth inning was courtesy of Acuña, who walked with one out, stole second, stole third, and then scored on a not particularly deep fly to right. The Marlins had chipped away at the Sox's 8-0 lead at that point, but Acuña's wheels provided the second-half answering run that Sunday's game lacked, making it a 9-3 game.
The White Sox position players also held up their own defensively to help out their pitchers. Quero cut down Lopez's attempted steal of second in the second, Lenyn Sosa snared Jakob Marsee's line drive and fired to first for an inning-ending 4-3 double play in the third, and Acuña gathered a tricky hop on Agustín Ramírez's two-out, two-on groundout to limit the Marlins to one run in the fifth, and secure the 15th out that Kay couldn't get on Sunday.
Martin didn't retire the side in order in any of his five innings, but the glovework allowed him to survive a two-run Liam Hicks homer in the fourth and eight other hard-hit balls to get through five.
Newcomb ended up providing the calming presence Sunday's game lacked, as he retired the first six batters he faced until Marsee opened the eighth with a triple off the right-field wall. Newcomb nearly stranded him after responding with two strikeouts, but Hicks plopped a soft fly into left field to keep the inning alive, and eventually necessitate the entrance of the Chicago Hicks, who recorded the final four outs without incident.
Bullet points:
*The White Sox struck out 10 times, which is somehow a season low. Four of them were by Hays, but he made his non-K count.
*Murakami's home run streak ended at three, as he finished 1-for-5 with a strikeout.
*Pereira tweaked his ankle when his left foot caught on the wall in a valiant attempt to run down Marsee's triple, but he stayed in the game.
*Vargas recorded the first six RBI performance by a White Sox hitter since Seby Zavala's three homer game on July 31, 2021.
