A lot of the White Sox's second-half success has been predicated on attacking the fastball, which leads to the obvious countermove of never throwing them.
It's not a move that's available to every pitcher, but Hurston Waldrep was able to make it work. Just 12 of his 87 pitches qualified as a standard variation, as he was instead able to ride a splitter-forward approach to seven easy innings, which allowed an unearned run to stand up as the only necessary offense for the Braves to steal a series victory at home.
Martín Pérez was nearly as good as Waldrep on a stricter pitch count, as he allowed just a double and two singles over 5⅓ innings, but he became the hard-luck loser thanks to an error by Colson Montgomery in the fourth inning.
With one out, Marcell Ozuna hit a ringing double off the base of the left field wall, but Pérez followed by getting Michael Harris II to ground out to Montgomery. A similar groundout would allow him to escape the inning unscored upon, but Ozzie Albies hit a chopper up the middle that developed slower. Montgomery came charging across in front of second base, but the ball thudded off the thumb of his glove as he attempted to gather it, and Ozuna scored on the fateful E6.
Not much else happened around it. Both teams were limited to four hits, and the White Sox drew the only walk. The Braves only had one other at-bat with runners in scoring position, while the White Sox didn't even get a runner to second base. Luis Robert Jr. tried to force the issue when he reached on a one-out single in the fifth, but Sean Murphy cleanly cut him down at second on a stolen base attempt, and the Sox were limited to just one single over the remaining four innings.
Mike Tauchman came close to thwarting a smooth Atlanta finish when he anticipated a first-pitch Raisel Iglesias slider with one out in the ninth, but while he hit it well, he didn't quite get all of it, as Ronald Acuña Jr. caught it in front of the right field warning track.
You had to imagine the threats, as Waldred needed just 31 pitches to complete three innings and 58 for five. The closest thing to labor came in the sixth, when Tauchman engaged in an 11-pitch at-bat with one out. Even then, the effects were limited. He flied out, and besides that, it was surrounded by a first-pitch Curtis Mead single, and a first-pitch Miguel Vargas groundout.
Bullet points:
*The game was completed in 1 hour and 59 minutes, which is the fastest nine-inning game for the White Sox this year. The presence of rain and lightning in the distance on getaway day might have inspired the pace.
*This is the eighth time the White Sox have been shut out, and the fourth by a 1-0 score. They're now 9-28 in one-run games.
*Of course, this was the game where the White Sox bullpen turned in drama-free relief work. Jordan Leasure, Mike Vasil and Brandon Eisert combined to allow just one hit over 2⅔ innings. This kind of effort on Tuesday would've secured a series victory, but they wouldn't have secured their fourth consecutive losing season with 35 games to play if they were better at sequencing.
