Garrett Crochet was overpowering while Luis Robert Jr. snapped out of his slump so resoundingly that it's like he wasn't in one, and that was good enough for the White Sox to win by one run.
The margin might've been greater were Crochet not operating under stringent workload restrictions, but Robert is free to play the whole game, and he factored into the score all the way through. He crushed a two-run homer over Minute Maid Park's train tracks in the third, plopped a solo shot into the first row of the Crawford Boxes in the fifth, and then tacked on two-out RBI single in the eighth for insurance the White Sox bullpen needed, because just like other forms of insurance, it should be illegal for them to work without it.
Robert ended up going 4-for-5 and drove in four of the White Sox's five runs. It's not quite right to say he singlehandedly ended the Astros' eight-game winning streak, it's about as close as one can get.
Crochet did nearly as much as he was allowed to do. He said that he was one cutter tweak away from fixing the form that got rocked for four homers against the Cubs his last time out, and he delivered by striking out nine over four innings. It was a very silly display of pitching, as he racked up 17 whiffs on just 55 pitches. Throw in eight called strikes, and nearly half of his pitches advanced his cause.
He only ran into one snag, when Jose Altuve doubled through the scoreboard in left, and Yordan Alvarez dropped a broken-bat single to center to make it a 3-1 game. The double was as bad of luck as 108.4 mph off the bat can be, because Andrew Benintendi was in position to limit Altuve to a single on a clean carom, but the glitch granted him scoring position by default.
Crochet ignored more bad luck in the fourth, which started with an infield single, and struck out his final three hitters on four pitches apiece. Crochet hadn't thrown fewer than 74 pitches in any of his four-inning outings since the Sox started drawing him down, so this really shows how committed they are to that particular plan. Considering they'd lost his last nine starts -- a losing streak Chris Flexen would call "cute" -- I wondered if they'd think about stretching him out for a fifth, but nope.
The conservatism almost backfired immediately, because Touki Toussaint started the fifth with a walk and an HBP in front of Altuve and Alvarez, and look what they just did to Crochet, right? Except here, Altuve tried bunting on the first pitch, spotting Toussaint a strike that turned into a K, and Alvarez grounded into a 6-3 double play.
That started a streak of Toussaint innings whose endings didn't match their beginnings, because after he struck out Yainer Diaz and Jeremy Peña to open the sixth, Victor Caratini kept the inning alive with a single, and Jake Meyers homered to make it a 4-3 game.
Grady Sizemore tried to get Toussaint to finish the inning, but a walk and a double forced him to go to Justin Andreson, who stranded both runners with a groundout before pitching a 1-2-3 seventh. Matt Foster, making his first MLB appearance since September 2022 with Tommy John surgery in between, reintroduced himself with a perfect eighth.
That turned out to be crucial, because the Sox had just tacked on another run in the top of the inning. Dominic Fletcher singled (off a lefty!) with one out, moved to third when Nicky Lopez's grounder rolled through the right side, and scored when Robert greeted new reliever Kaleb Ort with a line drive to single that made it 5-3. It was the Sox's lone hit in seven at-bats with runners in scoring position.
Chad Kuhl ended up recording his second career save, but only after giving up a pinch-hit homer to Jon Singleton with two outs in the ninth to flirt with the idea of a 31st blown save before their 30th win.
Bullet points:
*Fletcher stood tall against lefties tonight, as he drew a seven-pitch walk against Caleb Ferguson, who was brought in for the matchup advantage.
*White Sox pitching struck out 16 against two walks and an HBP.
*White Sox hitters struck out only seven times against five walks, no small feat considering that starter Spencer Arrighetti had struck out 25 batters over his last two starts.
