Chase Meidroth’s homer and Chicago’s patient approach send White Sox past Tigers 8-1

The middle innings broke it open

Chicago’s first run arrived in the second, when Braden Montgomery doubled to right and brought Chase Meidroth home. It was a modest opening, but it mattered because the White Sox were already showing what the afternoon would become: hard-earned traffic, deep counts and just enough contact to cash it in.

The game’s first real turn came in the fourth. Sam Antonacci lined a double to right that scored Colson Montgomery and Brenton Doyle, then Kyle Teel followed with a single to right that brought Antonacci home. In one inning, a 1-0 edge became 4-0, and Detroit starter Troy Melton was pushed out after 3 2/3 innings and 83 pitches. Melton struck out four, but the three walks and constant traffic kept him from ever settling into a clean rhythm.

Chicago added the loudest swing in the fifth. Meidroth drove a homer to left, scored at 367 feet, with Colson Montgomery aboard to make it 6-0. That one swing gave the White Sox a cushion that matched the shape of the day: they were not overwhelming in every at-bat, but when the openings came, they found the extra-base hit. Antonacci finished with two hits and two RBIs, Meidroth scored twice and drove in two, and the supporting cast kept extending innings rather than letting Detroit escape them.

Detroit put men on, but never found the inning

That was the difference for the Tigers. They were not shut out of chances. Detroit finished with six hits, five walks and a hit batter, yet came away with only one run and stranded 16 runners. Eduardo Valencia did his part with a 3-for-4 day, accounting for half of the Tigers’ hits by himself, and Riley Greene scored the lone run. But the broader offensive line told the story more honestly: nine strikeouts, no home runs and too many empty trips after getting somebody aboard.

The only Detroit scoring play came in the eighth, when Max Clark lifted a sacrifice fly to center to score Greene. By then, Chicago’s pitching group had already done the more important work. Davis Martin covered 4 1/3 scoreless innings with six strikeouts, allowing just three hits and two walks. After that, Hagen Smith, Huascar Brazobán, Trevor Richards and Luis Castillo finished the game. Richards gave up the Tigers’ only run, but the staff as a whole limited Detroit to a .194 average for the day and even erased one running attempt with a caught stealing.

Our take: the White Sox won with patience, and the Tigers have to make innings shorter

The most convincing part of Chicago’s win was not the final score by itself. It was the way the White Sox made Detroit work for every out. Chicago saw 178 pitches in 43 plate appearances, drew eight walks and forced four Tigers pitchers to cover eight innings at 22.3 pitches per inning. That is a heavy workload for a staff that also issued a balk, uncorked a wild pitch and allowed two stolen bases. If Detroit is looking for the clearest area to clean up, it starts there: fewer free baserunners and more efficient counts. Melton needed 83 pitches to get 11 outs, and Tyler Holton needed 22 pitches for one out. Those are the kinds of innings that set up a long afternoon.

There is a small cautionary note for Chicago, and it comes from the same box score that flatters the offense. The White Sox left 21 runners on base. They absolutely earned this win, but they also created more traffic than they converted. On another day, eight walks and 10 hits can produce even more than eight runs. The value of Antonacci’s two-run double and Meidroth’s two-run homer was that they prevented all that traffic from becoming waste. Teel added an RBI single, Murakami forced in a run with a walk, and Randal Grichuk’s sacrifice fly finished the scoring, but there were still chances that went unused.

Taken together, though, this was a sharp, complete White Sox performance. They out-hit Detroit 10-6, out-scored it 8-1, played error-free baseball and got contributions from the lineup and the mound. The Tigers, by contrast, spent too much of the game almost getting back into it. In baseball, that can be the most frustrating kind of defeat: enough baserunners to imagine a different ending, not enough execution to make one happen. On this day, Chicago was simply cleaner where the game is usually decided — getting on base, finishing key innings and keeping the other club’s traffic from turning into damage.

Scoring moments

1. 2nd Inning

   B. Montgomery doubled to right, Meidroth scored.

2. 4th Inning

   Antonacci doubled to right, C. Montgomery scored and Doyle scored.

3. 4th Inning

   Teel singled to right, Antonacci scored.

4. 5th Inning

   Meidroth homered to left (367 feet), C. Montgomery scored.

5. 8th Inning

   Clark hit sacrifice fly to center, Greene scored.

6. 8th Inning

   Murakami walked, Peters scored, Vargas to second, Teel to third.

7. 8th Inning

   Grichuk hit sacrifice fly to center, Teel scored.