In his Pebble Hunting newsletter -- and in Bluesky posts afterward -- Sam Miller has been bemoaning not just the lack of complete games, but the unwillingness for many managers to even give it a go.
Jake Bennett added another one to the pile. Despite needing just 81 pitches to complete seven shutout innings ... and even though his single-inning high of 19 happened in the second ... and no matter the fact that he'd retired 13 of the last 14 batters he faced ... Chad Tracy didn't let him start the eighth.
The move to the bullpen provided no respite for the White Sox, as Greg Weissert and Jovani Moran each threw a scoreless inning to see the shutout to the end. The White Sox were only able to avoid a team Maddux, as they combined to throw 103 pitches, but on the heels of Peyton Tolle's six shutout innings on Tuesday, it's been a tough two nights for the White Sox lineup against lefties.
"Both guys had great extension," said Randal Grichuk, stipulating that this is an element that working on pitching machines, even Trajekt, cannot replicate. "Tonight’s guy, hit his spots, threw the ball well, pitched in, pitched up, pitched down. I was saying in the 7th or 8th that was the best located pitched game by a starter against us all season."
As a result, the Red Sox were able to snap the White Sox's home series winning streak at 10, with a chance for the sweep on Thursday.
Bennett was able to paint by numbers. The first time through, he established the fastball relentlessly inside. When the White Sox started trying to ambush it, he started moving fastballs out of the zone while introducing changeups away, and that just led to quick outs.
"It’s one of those things you gotta just get it out front a little bit," Grichuk said. "Once you do that, they see it and they are going to go soft."
"We just haven’t tapped into the slug, had that big hit that we’ve been used to getting," Will Venable said. "We’ve seen a lot of foul balls on fastballs in the zone, just haven’t been able to get on top of them and hit them hard. We did hit a couple balls hard, but just overall a lot like yesterday."
Bennett only got himself into trouble in the second, when Chase Meidroth singled and Sam Antonacci walked to start the inning. Bennett responded by striking out Braden Montgomery and Junior Pérez, then got Kyle Teel to roll over, and the White Sox didn't put a runner in scoring position for the remainder of the game.
On the other side, Davis Martin retired the first six batters he faced, but the flashes of hard contact in his first two innings manifested itself into crooked numbers in the latter two. He lost Jarren Duran to a walk after getting ahead 0-2 to open the third, and although Carlos Narvaez gave him a first out with a sac bunt, it didn't provide him any footing.
Instead, a barrage of hard-hit balls followed. Tsung-Che Cheng shot a single to center that scored Duran, and then took second on the throw home. Teel gifted him another 90 feet with a passed ball, and after Anthony Siegler walked, Ceddanne Rafaela doubled Cheng home for a 2-0 lead, with still just one out.
Martin was able to get a second out when Miguel Vargas stopped Wilyer Abreu's grounder while drawn in, but a third run ended up scoring in a sequence that left three players banged up. First, Willson Contreras fouled a ball off his foot. Then, Siegler broke for home on a wild pitch and beat Teel to the plate, but took the worse end of a collision that led to his removal from the game. Contreras followed with a deep fly out to center, with Pérez flagging it down as he crashed into a post to bring the inning to a merciful end.
"Mechanically felt really really in sync in those first two innings, felt like they were really crisp, clean and then kind of goes downhill from there," Martin said. "Mechanically compared to last week, [it] was much better. Still a lot of work to be done and I think the physical toll of this first half is kind of starting to show up."
Pérez stayed in the game, but Siegler didn't take the field to start the bottom of the third, and Contreras departed during. The Red Sox announced a bruised trap for the former, and a bruised foot for the latter.
That didn't stop them from tagging Martin for two more runs in the fourth. They posted four singles over the first five batters to make it a 5-0 game, and while Martin cut it off with a pair of groundouts, the fact that he threw 39 pitches to get through the fourth made a fifth inning impractical.
"If you told me kind of across the board stat lines where the team's at, where I'm at, in spring training I'd be pretty ecstatic, but if you put in what the first 10-12 starts looked like, it's pretty tough," Martin said. "I feel good. Overall, just some tired bumps and bruises. No one feels great this time of year. It's just figuring out how to make sure we can take care of our body."
The White Sox bullpen tried to make a game of it. Chris Murphy posted a scoreless fifth against his former team, Seranthony Domínguez worked around a one-out walk thanks to Teel cutting down another stolen-base attempt at second, Bryan Hudson plunked Rafaela before picking him off twice in the seventh (the second one worked), and Trevor Richards handled the final two innings for his 14th game finished. The White Sox offense just had no ability to string together productive plate appearances outside of the second, and even one effective PA was largely elusive.
Bullet points:
*The White Sox were shut out for the fourth time this season, but the first three happened over the span of their first 15 games, making the most recent shutout April 11.
*Antonacci had another encouraging night against a lefty starter, as he reached on a single and a walk. Luisangel Acuña singled in both of his plate appearance, and Meidroth had the only other hit.
*Martin entered this game with a 5-0 record and 0.88 ERA in seven home starts. He's now 5-1 with a 1.80 ERA.
*Acuña committed the game's lone error when he tried to glove a Rafaela grounder and throw in one motion, but sailed it to Vargas, who made a leaping catch but couldn't come down in time.
*The Twins walked off the Guardians. The good news is that keeps the White Sox in first place in the AL Central. The bad news is the Twins are just two games back.
