Upon sharing the link to the First Pitch post on social media, an esteemed Sox Machine member warned me about my wording.
The first White Sox-Braves game was Braden Montgomery's debut/walk-off homer. The second put the White Sox in first place for the first time all year. Let's see if this one bears equal or greater significance. soxmachine.com/2026/08/firs...
— Jim Margalus (@soxmachine.com) 2026-08-20T18:12:20.227Z
you better not have a cursed monkey paw around you when you say that
— BRAK AND BLUE (@yinkadoubledare.bsky.social) 2026-08-20T18:21:35.498Z
And were it not for an Andrew Benintendi opposite-field single, it could have very well been the case, as that's all that stood between the Braves and a combined no-hitter in this afternoon's makeup game at Rate Field.
Grant Holmes carried the bid through six before Benintendi thwarted it in the seventh, but activating the Atlanta bullpen turned out to be a worse fate. Didier Fuentes, Dylan Lee and Raisel Iglesias combined for three perfect innings, retiring eight of nine batters by strikeout.
That left Anthony Kay as the hard-luck loser on the White Sox's side. Kay pitched an effective six-plus innings, allowing just a pair of runs on five hits and a walk while striking out six. He just had a couple of snags with the bottom of the Atlanta order that resulted in a pair of single tallies.
Mauricio Dubón led off the third with a single, then scored all the way from first on Austin Riley's double to the vacant left field corner. That turned out to be only run the Braves needed, but they tacked one more on Kay's tab on his way out.
Kay started the seventh to face Michael Harris II, but gave up a double to the right field corner. Huascar Brazobán entered and promptly gave up three more hard-hit balls. The first was a deep flyout to right that allowed Harris to advance to third. That brought the infield in, and so Riley's smashed grounder got through the middle with no problem for his second run-scoring hit and a 2-0 lead.
Brazobán then gave up a third loud batted ball, a single to Sean Murphy. But he recovered to strike out Ronald Acuña Jr. before giving way to Hagen Smith, who stranded the runners with a strikeout of Drake Baldwin, which ceased the scoring for the rest of the day.
The White Sox had a hard time generating anything, although they had a number of decent swings against Holmes. Statcast shows nine hard-hit balls out of 16, but the Braves happened to be positioned well for all but one of them. That was Benintendi's single, which followed a Vargas walk to create the first and only White Sox rally of the game.
In came Fuentes, who locked up Braden Montgomery on a slider that might've been low, but Montgomery hesitated too long before half-motioning to challenge. Colson Montgomery and Chase Meidroth both swung on their strike threes, and Randal Grichuk's routine fly to shallow left field turned out to be the only batted ball the rest of the way.
Bullet points:
*The White Sox are once again tied in the number of shutouts for and against, 9-9.
*Fuentes, Lee and Iglesias combined to get 11 whiffs on 15 swings over just three innings.
*Colson Montgomery and Drew Romo each drew walks for the Sox's only other baserunners of the afternoon.
*Smith retired all four batters he faced, three by strikeout. Trevor Richards handled the ninth inning with little issue, so the back end of the bullpen got the day off without real sacrifice.
