I've forgotten what postseason baseball feels like, but tonight's nine innings all seemed to carry a weight that we haven't felt in quite some time.
There weren't any anxious fans for cameras to find between pitches, but between the early hooks put a disproportionate amount of focus on managerial choices in the middle innings, and the deliberate pace of play that made every later at-bat a battle, this otherwise had the markings of an October affair.
And despite losing Carlos Rodón to a sore shoulder after two innings, the White Sox won a battle of the bullpens against the Brewers. A José Abreu two-run homer tied it, #WILDPITCHOFFENSE won it, and a Yoán Moncada solo shot gave the Sox insurance they wouldn't use.
The White Sox have won five games in a row, which ties their longest winning streak of last year.
This game could have easily been about Renteria's questionable pitcher management in the middle innings, although trying to nurse a 2-1 lead for the last seven innings can make any manager look not up to the task. Fortunately, Craig Counsell had his own issues with leaving a reliever in too long, and those hurt him more.
Corbin Burnes looked fantastic for three innings in relief of starter Brett Anderson, but Counsell wanted a full fourth. Walking Luis Robert on four pitches with one out should've been a cue that he'd lost his sharpness, but when he struck out Yoán Moncada with a fastball off the plate, he got the chance to finish the inning.
One problem: Abreu came to the plate having seen all of Burnes' pitches during an 11-pitch battle two innings earlier, and this time Burnes had a fraction of the stuff. Burnes fell behind 3-0, and when he tried to get back in the count with a fastball, Abreu took him back over the center field wall for a game-tying two-run shot. And that's when Counsell pulled Burnes for David Phelps.
Then again, while Phelps had a better process, he didn't get better results. He faced runners on the corners with two outs after a pair of muscled opposite-field around a double-play grounder that Leury García beat out. Up came Nick Madrigal, and Phelps walked him on four pitches, with ball four scooting past catcher Manny Pina to allow García to score the go-ahead run.
Corey Knebel replaced Phelps, but he ended up giving up a solo shot to Moncada in the ninth that probably wouldn't have left the yard were it a pre-2019 baseball. It doesn't count any less.
While Counsell's bullpen caused agony in the late innings, Renteria had no such issues. Evan Marshall made easy work of the eighth once again, and Alex Colomé worked over three lefties around a two-out double for his second save.
Ross Detwiler picked up the win, and he can be credited with getting the game back on track. He maintained his 0.00 ERA with a most unusual 1⅓ innings. He recorded the final out of the sixth without throwing a pitch, then had to record the third out three times in the seventh. Madrigal alligator-armed a sliding attempt on a grounder to the right side, and James McCann let a strikeout of Avísail García get past him to keep the inning alive. Detwiler wasn't fazed, striking out Eric Sogard to end the inning.
The innings before Detwiler were a little more of a mess.
Going back to the first, Carlos Rodón came out ... not firing, struggling to break 90 in the first inning. He was throwing strikes, but with a decreasing amount of steam. He finished two innings, but the velocity chart showed why Matt Foster opened the third. The White Sox said that Rodón left the game with left shoulder soreness.
Foster carried the 2-1 lead through four, but Renteria lost his compass in the middle innings. Jace Fry gave up a single and double that put runners in scoring position, but came back to get a shallow fly out and a strikeout of Christian Yelich around an intentional walk to make a scoreless escape just any kind of out away.
In came Steve Cishek, who has been terrible at closing the door. Sure enough, he spun a slider on the inner half to Avisaíl Garcia, who ripped the ball to left for his second run-scoring hit of the day. The single scored two, and Cishek has now allowed six inherited runners to score over his five outings.
He had more two-out trouble in the sixth. Detwiler was slow to warm, so Renteria tried to get through the inning with Cishek despite back-to-back lefties coming to the plate with a runner on third. Ben Gamel yanked a single through the right side for another run that gave Milwaukee a 4-2 lead.
Detwiler came in to face Logan Morrison, but he didn't actually face Morrison. Instead, he picked off Gamel before he even threw a pitch.
The White Sox grabbed a quick 2-0 lead off Anderson. Robert singled, Moncada doubled him to third, and they both scored on productive outs (Abreu groundout, Yasmani Grandal sac fly). They just needed six innings to figure out how to score again.
Bullet points:
*Nomar Mazara made his debut, pinch-hitting for Adam Engel in the sixth. He flied out then, but he contributed one of the opposite-field singles in the decisive eighth.
*Robert had his first multi-walk game, as well as his first multi-steal game, swiping second with ease both times.
*Leury García and Moncada each had three hits apiece, while Robert reached base three times from the leadoff spot.
