White Sox fans surely are euphoric with their team in first place in the American League Central this late in the season for the first time since 2021. The Sox themselves, though?
“It’s June 10,” Chase Meidroth said.
Not even the rain that soaked Rate Field before and after the Sox’ 2-1 victory Wednesday over the Braves could’ve doused fans’ excitement like Meidroth did.
But he’s right. There’s still a long way to go. The Sox (36-31) hold merely a half-game lead over the Guardians (37-33), who got swept at home by the Yankees.
Meanwhile, the Sox have taken two games from the major-league-leading Braves, beating ace Chris Sale — the Sox’ ace three rebuilds ago — and quieting one of the top offenses in baseball.
“It’s great, and I think what’s special about our group right now is we’re really not concerned about who we’re playing,” manager Will Venable said. “Certainly it’s great to be able to win a series here at home against a really good ballclub. But for us, it’s about going out and executing the things we want to execute, and obviously tonight, we did a really good job and it paid off.”
That started with Davis Martin, who benefitted from seven days of rest since his last start last week against the Twins, his worst of the season. In six innings, he allowed no runs and six hits, hit a batter and struck out six with no walks.
“You look at what Minnesota was, I think we thought a lot of it [was] mechanical, but I think just physically I was exhausted,” Martin said. “And I think the seven-day [rest made me] realize how much maybe the body was tired. That little blow was huge. Felt like the ball was coming out of my hand like normal, the shapes were normal. Kind of like back to myself.”
Martin outdueled former Sale, who entered with the fifth-best ERA in the majors but allowed two runs in the fourth and left in the sixth trailing 2-0. Sale, the Sox’ first-round draft pick in 2010, allowed six hits and a walk and fanned six.
“I gave myself a little bit of time to look up; I know in left-center they have the career stats [on the scoreboard],” Martin said. “They had my career, 250 punchouts [278], and he had 3,000, 2,000, [2,671] some crazy big number. It’s exactly who you want to play against.”
Braden Montgomery, who hit a walk-off, two-run homer Tuesday, led off the fourth with his first major-league double and scored on Derek Hill’s single. Hill then stole second, advanced to third on Jacob Gonzalez’s groundout to first and scored on Luisangel Acuna’s tapper down the third-base line with the infield in.
The Braves might have been shut out if not for third baseman Miguel Vargas’ two-out fielding error that allowed a run to score in the seventh. That was the only blemish among relievers Sean Newcomb, Seranthony Dominguez and Bryan Hudson, who earned the save with the help of a fine running catch by Meidroth in short right field that ended the game.