Bullet-point recap:
*Michael Kopech pitched five innings, which is a victory in and of itself considering his last start ended after two outs with a pop in his knee.
*The actual victory eluded the White Sox because the Astros scored three of their four runs on two homers hit into the Crawford Boxes. J.J. Matijevic and Mauricio Dubon homered in back-to-back innings; the former would've been a homer in two of 30 parks, the latter four.
*Both homers came on fastballs that lacked their usual hop, and that was Kopech's biggest issue. His fastball topped out 96 and averaged 94, which is 1-2 ticks below his usual.
*The White Sox had chances. They went 0-for-5 with runners in scoring position, and came away empty-handed from a second inning opportunity where they had second and third with one out. Josh Harrison popped out, and Adam Haseley struck out.
*The Sox also used the wrong part of the park. Luis Robert and AJ Pollock had two of the three deepest drives in the game, but both traveled to right center and died on the warning track, around 390 feet away.
*Robert was able to split the right-center gap for a double that drove home Danny Mendick for the first run of the game, which narrowed Houston's lead to 2-1 before Dubon hit his two-run shot in the bottom of the inning.
*The Sox reclaimed those two runs in the top of the eighth with different help from the Crawford Boxes. Pollock's drive bounced into the bottom part of the wall and shot off toward center field, confusing Michael Brantley and turning a double into an RBI triple. He then scored on Jake Burger's groundout to make it 4-3.
*The tying run reached base in the ninth when Josh Harrison drew a leadoff walk on a questionable checked-swing call that went his way, but he advanced no farther. Haseley struck out for the third time on the night, Mendick flied out to right, and Andrew Vaughn to center.
*Pollock was charged with a throwing error when his attempt to get Alex Bregman at third in the first inning trickled past Jake Burger. Kopech should've been backing up the play, but he was hovering around the middle of the diamond. Kyle Tucker moved up from first to second on the play, but it led to no damage.
