Neither unfeeling computer overlords nor Andrew Benintendi in a White Sox uniform have been established as reliable sources of catharsis. Yet both of them undeniably delivered in a three-run ninth to lift the Sox to back-to-back series victories out west, even with Munetaka Murakami, Colson Montgomery and Miguel Vargas all seeing their personal homer streaks die out in Phoenix on Thursday afternoon.
First the robot umps came through to deliver Chase Meidroth a four-pitch walk to lead off the final inning of a 1-1 tie against Paul Sewald. His subsequent walk to Edgar Quero seemingly wiped out the benefit of Meidroth getting bunted over to second, but it made it sting more when Seawald split the plate with a 2-2 heater to Benintendi. The veteran outfielder revealed in Milwaukee that he’s using a lighter, shorter bat this year to enable faster swings, but him depositing a three-run bomb to the pool beyond Chase Field’s right-center fence is finally the moment that makes the anecdote worth sharing.
Staked to a 4-1 lead, Seranthony Domínguez pitched a 1-2-3 ninth to pick up his fifth save of the year, and probably his sharpest, with a pair of punchouts. He and Grant Taylor combined to strike out five while recording the final eight outs scoreless.
April of 2026 isn't setting up as a banner month for humanity at large, but it might contain the best work of Davis Martin's career to date. He fell two outs of shy of three consecutive outings of seven innings, but leave the cutoff at six innings with two runs across or less, and Martin is 4-for-4 in April.
Martin's four-seamer ran up to 95.6 mph to blow away Adrian Del Castillo for his seventh and final strikeout to end the sixth. Yet it was the 29-year-old’s command and mixture of two separate breaking balls that largely defanged the lefties in the Arizona batting order. The only run across on Martin seemingly could have been avoided, had Everson Pereira not missed the relay man on Del Castillo's double into the right right field corner, instead throwing to second and allowing Ketel Marte to score from first. Better outfield work from Sam Antonacci in left kept Martin at one allowed over 6 1/3. The rookie fielded the carom off the wall on an Alek Thomas double off Taylor in time to keep Nolan Arenado at third, and Taylor struck out José Fernandez to strand his inherited run, keeping the game at 1-1 through seven.
Now that Lenyn Sosa is gone, Martin is the only holdover from the 2022 White Sox, so it was thematically appropriate to see run support take the form of that team's single-reliant offense. When Vargas stayed back and rapped a high Michael Soroka curveball back up the middle in the third, it was already the fifth White Sox single of the day, producing their first run.
Sox hitters troubled their old friend Soroka and his suite of slurves for seven hits over five laborious innings, but Benintendi’s ninth inning blast was their only extra-base hit of the day. Even when Colson Montgomery looped a changeup into right-center for the fourth single of the third inning, Murakami picked it up late and failed to score.
The trouble with such a long wait for a knockout blow is it allows time for something like Diamondbacks shortstop Geraldo Perdomo to fortuitously not catch Pereira's soft line drive right at him, setting him up for the rare and aesthetically displeasing unassisted inning-ending double play with two forceouts at second. Vargas didn't look brilliant drifting off second and getting tagged by Perdomo, but as often is the case in American society, there were no scenarios in play where he could have succeeded anyway.
That cynical line was written before the ninth inning, so the takeaway now is that if the Sox keep hitting the ball hard, good things will eventually happen.
Bullet points:
*Murakami had a banner day at first, starting a 3-6-3 inning-ending twin killing in the third, before sprawling out to pick a 97.7 mph hard grounder off the bat of Del Castillo in the fourth.
*Montgomery didn’t homer, but did collect his first three-hit performance of the season.
*Martin has a 1.37 ERA in 26 1/3 innings this month, striking out 20 over five walks.
