Pitching for No. 1 UCLA against Rutgers tonight, Bruins ace Logan Reddemann struck out 18 batters over eight innings on just 104 pitches.
By comparison, watching the White Sox allow Kris Bubic to set a career high with 11 strikeouts over seven innings could've been worse.
Only barely, though. The White Sox spent the entire night mystified by Bubic's arsenal. Miguel Vargas drew the only walk two batters into the game, Lenyn Sosa broke up the no-hitter with a leadoff double in the fifth and advanced no further, and Derek Hill poked an opposite-field single through the right side in the sixth.
"There’s some deception there, kind of an invisiball, it seemed like," Will Venable said of Bubic. "We were just in between, I thought. The game plan was to take the four-seam fastball away from him. We weren’t able to do that. Second time through, he was able to get to some spin. We chased below."
All of the White Sox's offensive feats could be described in a single, non-run-on sentence, as they were shut out for the second time this season. It was almost a team Maddux as well, as Matt Strahm and Lucas Erceg pitched perfect eighth and ninth innings to wrap up the blanking with just 105 pitches thrown, and avenge their 2-0 loss the night before.
Davis Martin ended up as the hard-luck loser. He matched Bubic in terms of efficiency, needing just 82 pitches to complete seven innings. He just couldn't match Bubic in terms of scorelessness.
"It's a lot of fun, kind of going back and forth," Martin said of the pitchers' duel. "When their guys are on, when you're on, it's a lot of fun. You just got to go out there and try to make one or two less mistakes than he does, and I just didn't do that tonight."
Martin faced the minimum through three innings thanks to a line-drive double play in the second inning, and Tanner Murray cutting down Isaac Collins on his hustle double attempt in the third. But Maikel García greeted him with a single to open the fourth, Bobby Witt Jr. doubled him home, and the Royals had all the runs they needed. Carter Jensen added a gratuitous tack-on run when he pounced on an inner-third cutter and launched it out to right at 113.7 mph for a solo shot in the seventh.
Still, Martin added to his workhorse credentials. After being the only starter to complete a six-inning start his last time out -- Sean Burke and Erick Fedde completed six as bulk boys -- Martin became the first to pitch beyond it.
He left only an inning for the bullpen to cover, and that went to Duncan Davitt, who pitched around a leadoff walk to log a scoreless eighth inning in his major league debut. García's hot shot up the middle found Colson Montgomery, who started a 6-4-3 double play, and Bobby Witt Jr. flied out on the first pitch he saw, and Davitt's friends and family celebrated emphatically. From here, the question is whether he gets optioned back to Charlotte immediately, and who starts Sunday regardless.
"It's a feeling unmatched," Davitt said of his debut. "I tried to keep my eyes from going up into the stands, just because it's a lot bigger venue than most of the places down in the minor leagues, but the eyes went up anyway. Kind of soaking in the moment for a second, and realized where I'm at and what I'm doing and who all is here to support me. Kind of living in the moment for a minute, and locking in once the inning starts."
Bullet points:
*Martin and Davitt combined to throw just 96 pitches, so only 201 pitches were needed to complete this game.
*The runtime of 1 hour and 55 minutes is the shortest of the season by 19 minutes, and the quickest nine-inning game since Chris Sale and Mark Buehrle threw dueling complete games in 1 hour and 54 minutes on July 6, 2015.
*Derek Hill made a great diving catch to rob Vinnie Pasquantino of a single -- and perhaps an inside-the-park homer if it got past him -- to end the sixth.
