In lieu of the prettiest win of the season on Mother's Day, the White Sox offered their grittiest one.
They looked utterly buffaloed by Logan Gilbert as the Seattle righty allowed just one hit over six shutout innings, but Davis Martin kept the White Sox within striking distance, and that came into play when the White Sox finally struck Seattle's bullpen for two runs in the eighth. Seranthony Domínguez was able to overcome a control spasm to strand the bases loaded, and the White Sox's fifth series win out of seven is an impressive one.
"Happy to get the save for Mother's Day," Domínguez said. "[The mound visit] helped me a lot because now, I reset my mind and started again. We just needed two outs to get out of the inning and thank God I did it."
The White Sox were backed into the corner when the bottom of the eighth started. They'd stranded the bases loaded when Tristan Peters couldn't get a pair of drag bunt attempts down, then was out by the slimmest margin thanks to Cole Young's sensational play on a soft grounder. Compounding matters, Randal Grichuk started against a righty due to an outfielder shortage, and he opened the inning against another in Eduard Bazardo, with Drew Romo and his .136 average on deck.
Predictably, Grichuk fell behind 1-2. Unpredictably, Bazardo hung a sweeper over the heart of the plate, and Grichuk roped it into the White Sox bullpen to tie the game at 1.
Romo then kept it going, lining a double to right and barely beating the throw into second. Sam Antonacci bunted the go-ahead run to third, and then Munetaka Murakami was intentionally walked to bring Miguel Vargas to the plate.
Vargas had some of the only good swings against Gilbert up until that point, setting off fireworks with a double off the base of the left-field wall in the first, then lining out at 107.4 mph his next time up. By Statcast standards, his fly ball off the end of the bat was his third-most impressive batted ball of the afternoon, but as it played out, it was the most impactful. Although Randy Arozarena caught it with his momentum coming home, he couldn't get the ball out of his glove cleanly as Justin Jirschele sent Romo home, and the out-of-rhythm throw sailed well high and wide as Romo scored, giving the Sox their first lead of the game with one inning to go.
"That was a shallow fly ball and I’m a catcher, I’m not the fastest guy," Romo said. "I don’t know what happened. I was running and I couldn’t see it. I guess he bobbled it but [Jirschele] just told me to keep on going. I was like, ‘Dang, we’ll see what happens.’"
"Thought it was a decent read with Randy coming in full speed, and then a little bit of the hesitation getting it out of his glove and taking a chance there with two outs to take the lead," Jirschele said. "Somebody said I ran three-quarters of the way down the line with [Romo]. I don’t remember that. I think I blacked out."
Domínguez then jeopardized that lead by loading the bases with two singles and a four-pitch walk, all with one out. Up came the left-handed Young, with the left-handed Brendan Donovan to follow, but handedness didn't hurt him. Instead, he sawed off both hitters, with Young popping out behind second base, and Donovan grounding out harmlessly to first to end the game.
Once again, Martin turned in a quality start. Once again, Martin lowered his ERA, from 1.64 to 1.62 after throwing six innings of one-run ball.
Unlike his previous starts, this one was a relative slog. Martin got ahead of most hitters and filled up the zone per usual, but the location of his secondaries wasn't sharp early, which turned into a quick run when Julio Rodríguez doubled on a hanging changeup and came around to score when Arozarena foiled a well-located sinker for an RBI single.
"The pregame bullpen wasn’t very crisp, and I think it kind of carried into the first inning," Martin said. "[Zach Bove] just really does a good job of holding me accountable and seeing stuff. If we’re sluggish, he almost challenges me on top of that. So it's just stuff that you need to hear at the right time. It was a good coaching spot for him."
Martin's stuff sharpened as the afternoon went on, but he was still susceptible to protracted plate appearances. On one hand, this inflated his pitch count to a career-high 105 over six innings. On the other, he once again boosted his strikeout numbers by fanning nine on the day.
Will Venable probably could have pulled him after walking Cal Raleigh on nine pitches to bring his pitch count to 102 through two outs in the sixth, but Martin got one more batter, and he rewarded Venable's patience by striking out Arozarena on three pitches, pirouetting off the mound while blowing a kiss to the sky.
That set up the bullpen for fresh innings, and while Sean Newcomb saw a leadoff single turn into a double when Antonacci couldn't come up with the diving catch, he stranded a runner on third with a strikeout and flyout to keep it a 1-0 game. Bryan Hudson then worked the eighth, surviving a two-out single by Naylor for a scoreless inning, and eventually his first win as a White Sox.
Venable's willingness to push Martin into career-long territory stood in contrast to Dan Wilson, who pulled Gilbert after just 87 pitches despite him retiring the last 16 batters he faced. Gilbert flummoxed the Sox for seven strikeouts the first time through, including three backwards K's on 3-2 fastballs. The Sox might've been looking for Gilbert's splitter, but he successfully saved it for the second half of his start, and that gave him an equally effective secondary attack.
Even though Wilson had his best setup men in line with José A. Ferrer and Bazardo, the White Sox looked thrilled to see them.
Bullet points:
*The White Sox were 0-for-2 with runners in scoring position, but that number hides Vargas' sac fly. The Mariners were 1-for-9.
*The Sox had some raggedly outfield play. Antonacci fumbled a ball around the warning track, which didn't cost the Sox a base, but Peters overrunning a single allowed two runners to take an extra 90 feet. Martin pitched around it.
*Martin is now in second in baseball with a 1.62 ERA. He's allowed three earned runs or fewer in 17 consecutive starts, which is the longest streak since Garrett Crochet's 17 in 2024, which fell short of Mark Buehrle's 18 in 2011.
*Kyle Teel, soon off to Charlotte, was ebullient in the postgame clubhouse. He'll be catching five innings on Tuesday before DH-ing on Wednesday, and went into detail about how much hitting and catching he's been able to do, but his sentiments were best summed up by his first answer.
"I feel excited. I'm ready to go. I feel good. Can't wait. Feeling really good."
*With one quarter of the season in the books, the Sox are on a 77-win pace.
