By hanging a seven spot in the third, the White Sox ended a seven-series losing streak on the road.
The White Sox used one of their trademarked crooked numbers to open up what had been tight 1-1 game and coast over the remaining two-thirds of the game. A second consecutive victory at Camden Yards locked in a series victory, which they hadn't done on the road since taking two of three in San Diego at the very beginning of May. And by closing out June with a win, they secured their second consecutive winning month at 13-12.
A pair of rolling breaking balls did Baltimore starter Trey Gibson in. It wasn't necessarily a surprise to see Colson Montgomery obliterate a dangling 0-1 slider and blast it to Eutaw Street for a two-run shot and a 3-1 lead to open the scoring in the third. Everybody -- Gibson, fans, perhaps the very White Sox holding the bat -- was surprised when Junior Pérez launched a first-pitch hanging curve just right of dead center for a three-run homer that capped off the inning's scoring.
The first blast seemed to rattle Gibson, as he walked Braden Montgomery after getting ahead 1-2, and then walked Chase Meidroth on four pitches. Both hitters advanced a base with good reads on Tristan Peters' duck-snort single, before Jacob Gonzalez lined a solid single to left to make it a 5-1 game. That's when Pérez ambushed the first pitch of his second plate appearance to bookend the scoring with homers, and Gibson couldn't make it out of his namesake inning.
On the White Sox's pitching front, Erick Fedde both showed that he's capable of delivering a winning back-end start, but also why Will Venable prefers to have an opener for him. It seemed like he should've been hit harder, but aside from Samuel Basallo's RBI single in the first inning, he didn't start paying the price for pitches over the middle of the plate until his final inning of work.
In the fifth, Fedde gave up a one-out double to Gunnar Henderson and a two-out double to Dylan Beavers that made it a 9-2 game, followed by Pete Alonso rifling a 104-mph single that made it 9-3. With Basallo coming to the plate, Venable came to the mound with good reason to pull Fedde. But with a six-run lead and Fedde one out short of qualifying for the win, it would've felt a little bit mean. So Venable departed without pulling Fedde, and while the veteran right-hander fell behind 3-0, he ultimately got Basallo to fly out to the center field warning track to win the at-bat, and eventually the ballgame.
Tyler Schweitzer then justified the lack of opener further, because while having Fedde as the second pitcher likely would've necessitated a third arm, Schweitzer ended up handling the final four innings himself. The Orioles made him sweat early with a pair of singles during a 17-pitch sixth, but he then threw a 1-2-3 seventh on 15 pitches. That allowed him to start the eighth, and when he erased a first-pitch single with a first-pitch double play and got out of that frame on six pitches, Venable sent him out to finish it off.
Schweitzer's four-inning save is the sixth in baseball this season, but the first for the White Sox since Matt Ginter in 2002. His reward will probably be an option to Charlotte since Noah Schultz will need a roster spot to start on Wednesday. Baseball can be cruel that way.
Bullet points:
*Kyle Teel led off in place of Sam Antonacci and scored the game's first run in the first inning, drawing a walk and scoring from first on Andrew Benintendi's double. Teel didn't look like he was running his best, but since the ball stuck in the right field corner, he still scored without a throw.
*Gonzalez drove in the White Sox's final run in the fourth, following Peters' two-out single with a double to right center on the eight pitch he saw from Josh Walker. He now has 17 RBIs in his first 24 games.
*The White Sox now lead the AL Central by two games because the Guardians lost to Texas 4-2. The Rangers scored the go-ahead run when Cleveland left fielder Cooper Ingle threw the second out of the seventh inning into the stands for a two-base error.
— Texas Rangers (@Rangers) July 1, 2026
