For Luis Castillo, perhaps it really was as simple as emphasizing the changeup.
Making his second start for the White Sox, Castillo blasted past his season high in strikeouts with a heaping helping of offspeed pitches. He opened his evening by striking out Elly De La Cruz on consecutive changeups, and he closed it by tripling up on them to strike out Michael Toglia.
"That's the result when you have confidence in your pitches, confidence in your plan and we had a very good plan today," Castillo said via interpreter. "It was about time for me to start having confidence in that pitch. I haven't thrown it much before but coming to this game, that was the plan to throw more changeups and it was effective today."
He struck out eight Reds in between for a total of 10, beating his previous 2026 best by three over the course of seven shutout innings. Unlike Sean Burke the night before, he came away with a victory to show for it. The White Sox offense found that elusive fifth run this time, although it wasn't even needed after Hagen Smith struck out the side for a scoreless eighth, and Huascar Brazobán escorted the shutout over the finish line.
Statcast says Castillo only threw 20 changeups over the course of 104 pitches, but it felt far more present in his mix. He recorded half of his strikeouts on changeups, which got whiffs on eight of 10 swings, and everything seemed to play up off it. Fastballs -- four-seamers and sinkers -- accounted for 61 percent of his pitches, and while the those three pitches took the stress off his most vulnerable secondary, the slider didn't take the night off, either. He threw it just 17 times, but the Reds also had trouble touching it. They whiffed on five of seven swings, and Castillo generated 22 swinging strikes overall.
"After the sixth, the manager came up to me and asked me in the dugout if I was good, if I wanted one more inning," Castillo recalled via interpreter. "I said 'Yeah of course.' I was looking at him like 'What are you talking about?' I really wanted that seventh, and it was perfect."
He only suffered one scare, when Nick McLain hit a deep drive that threatened to clear the left-center wall before Tristan Peters fittingly made a leaping catch in front of Rate Field's "THE CATCH" sign below the yellow padding. The Reds couldn't muster a solitary stressful sequence otherwise. Sal Stewart's one-out single in the first inning was Cincinnati's only hit off the White Sox starter, and while Castillo walked two, he erased one with a pickoff.
With Smith working around a leadoff walk in the eighth with three strikeouts -- two looking, one swinging -- and Brazobán shrugging off Stewart's other one-out single in the ninth, the Reds never came to the plate with a runner in scoring position.
Conversely, the White Sox offense mustered plenty of threats, even if capitalizing on them took time. Through five, their only run came via the usual source: a Drew Romo homer, and on the 10th pitch of a protracted battle with Rhett Lowder to boot.
"I’ve been trying a lot of stuff in the cage," Romo said. "Everything is good in the cage and then I go out in the field and goes back to the way it was before. I didn’t even hit before the game, and I went and did that. Guess I'm not going to hit again."
The game finally loosened in the sixth, when Colson Montgomery squared up a second consecutive dangling changeup for a solid single that ushered Lowder from the game. In came Julian Garcia, and out went Chase Meidroth, who, sore wrist and all, belted an elevated sweeper into the White Sox bullpen for a two-run shot and a 3-0 lead.
"Treatment has been going well and everything feels good right now," Meidroth said. "Once you get in the game, adrenaline takes over. But working every day with the hitting department, working every single day and figuring out how to get better and continue my strength has been a huge success the last two weeks."
Memories of the White Sox's squandered three-run lead on Tuesday were just a little too fresh, so the Sox were able to extend it in the eighth. They alternated between walks and outs against Old Acquaintance Ron Marinaccio, after which Romo slapped a first-pitch fastball through the middle for a 4-0 lead on the White Sox's only hit with runners in scoring position. #WILDPITCHOFFENSE allowed Tristan Peters to score for extra run differential material.
Bullet points:
*The White Sox are now back to break even when it comes to shutting out versus being shut out, with eight apiece.
*Castillo made an athletic scoop and flip on a TJ Friedl drag bunt attempt to close out the fifth, so he helped his own cause with his glove.
"I was impressed too with my speed," Castillo said via interpreter. "I'm 33 years old and I was surprised that I was able to make that play. When I came into the dugout, I told the manager and the pitching coach, 'Yeah, I'm surprised too.'"
*Braden Montgomery was able to close a circuitous route with a diving catch in ninth to keep Stewart anchored to first, so the White Sox defense was on point.
*Sam Antonacci (3-for-5), Colson Montgomery (single, walk), Tristan Peters (double, walk) and Romo (homer, single) all reached base multiple times, and all needed the boost.
*Miguel Vargas got a true day off.
*With Cleveland defeating Detroit and the Minnesota beating Baltimore, the White Sox are back to leading the division by 3½ games, with the Tigers and Twins now trailing by that margin.
