Casual White Sox fans probably saw a pitching matchup of a Chad Kuhl-led bullpen day against a rejuvenated Chris Sale and figured the Braves would win this make-up game going away.
Savvy White Sox fans would remember 2018, during the nadir of the last rebuild, when a 20-win White Sox team pitching Dylan Covey shut out a 20-loss Red Sox team starting the perennial Cy Young candidate version of Sale. That night in Boston, Sale struck out 10 over eight shutout innings, but because he allowed a Trayce Thompson RBI single in the seventh inning, he ended up taking the loss.
So while it came as a surprise that Kuhl and the Gang (four White Sox relievers, h/t Jeffrey on that one) combined to three-hit the Braves and win a series that originated back in April, Sale's presence suggested it shouldn't shock, due to baseball being like that sometimes.
Sale was once again excellent, striking out 11 and allowing just four hits and a walk over seven innings. It just so happened that one of those hits was a Luis Robert Jr. solo shot in the first inning. Sale tried to get ahead with a first-pitch slider, but it ended up in the spot you associate with left-handed power hitters -- down and in, but clearly a strike -- and Robert smoked it just inside the left-field foul pole for a quick 1-0 lead, which turned out to be the final score.
Kuhl, who last threw 99 pitches in relief on Sunday, was given the easier task of preparing for a start, and only needing 49 pitches through three-plus innings before Pedro Grifol started the bullpen game in earnest. Justin Anderson was thew first man in, inheriting Ozzie Albies at second after a leadoff double in the fourth. He walked Marcell Ozuna, but he got Matt Olson to fly out, froze Austin Riley for a backward K, then got Sean Murphy to fly out to left to thwart the rally.
Jared Shuster ended up getting the win, which he deserved not only for carrying the lead across the fifth inning, but throwing the next two after that. His afternoon started inauspiciously when he boxed a Forrest Wall drag bunt for an error-turned-single, but a double play righted the ship. The only blemish otherwise was a two-out walk in the seventh, which didn't end up mattering.
John Brebbia, who handled the eighth, survived the biggest scare. He gave up a one-out single to Orlando Arcia and walked Jarred Kelenic to bring Albies to the plate, but two batters later, he emerged unscathed. He shattered Albies' bat on a popoout that Martín Maldonado caught in front of home plate, and then watched Tommy Pham run down Ozuna's sliced 103.3 mph against the right-field wall for the final out, which is a play that Gavin Sheets wouldn't have been likely to make.
Michael Kopech then survived a two-out error by Paul DeJong for the otherwise uneventful save.
The White Sox snapped the four-game winning streak despite being held scoreless over the final eight innings for the fourth straight game. Chris Segal's gigantic strike zone didn't help matters. He gave a couple inches off the outside corner to right-handed hitters, and pitchers on both sides were able to exploit it. The Sox and Braves combined for only seven hits, and rolled into three double plays. Corey Julks drew the lone walk against Sale, and was promptly picked off.
Bullet points:
*Robert had the only multi-hit game, going 2-for-3 with an opposite-field single when he saw that Sale's changeup was being called a strike despite never being one over the course of its path to the plate.
*Jiménez promptly grounded into a double play, even though it originally ate up Ozzie Albies. Robert was barely nipped at second, but Jiménez was thrown out by three steps, so he's not moving well. Jiménez did come into this one with an eight-game hitting streak around absences, which ended.
