Two bullpen games entered. One disintegrated almost immediately.
Game 1 of the American League wild-card series between the Chicago White Sox and Houston Astros did not feature the caliber of pitching typically associated with a postseason series opener. Not only were these the two weakest teams to qualify for the postseason, but also both clubs exhausted their top arms this past weekend as they continued to chase division titles. Astros ace Hunter Brown and White Sox innings leader Sean Burke both pitched Friday, making a Tuesday turnaround too tight.
Advertisement
As such, it was a pair of rookies in Houston right-hander AJ Blubaugh and Chicago lefty Hagen Smith who squared off as the de facto starting pitchers in Game 1. They served as the opening acts for a parade of relievers to follow, as the two undermanned clubs sought the 27 outs required to begin their postseason run on the right foot. The White Sox emerged victorious, taking Game 1 by a score of 6-3.
Unfortunately for Houston, the bullpen door had to open even earlier than planned. Blubaugh lost the strike zone in the top of the first inning, sending the Astros’ mound strategy spiraling from the get-go. Blubaugh — who led major-league relievers in innings pitched in the regular season, with a whopping 96 frames across 64 appearances, but was making his first start of the year — walked three of the five batters he faced and recorded only two outs before he was replaced by left-hander Bryan King. Prior to that, a throwing error from first baseman Christian Walker allowed leadoff man Sam Antonacci (who walked) to reach third base and eventually score on a sacrifice fly from Munetaka Murakami that gave Chicago a 1-0 lead.
It was a sloppy start all around for the 81-win Astros, the worst division winner in modern baseball history.
King escaped the top of the first with the Astros only down 1-0, but he struggled upon returning to the mound. Five straight Chicago hitters reached to open the second inning, a stretch that included a two-RBI single from Antonacci. Once again, Astros manager Joe Espada needed to make a pitching change before he would’ve liked, calling on another rookie in right-hander Miguel Ullola to clean up the mess. Ullola succeeded in keeping the score 3-0, but the damage was already done, and the Astros bats were making minimal progress rallying back.
Advertisement
Chicago’s bullpen adventure got off to a much smoother start thanks to Smith, who emerged down the stretch as a valuable multi-inning weapon. The fifth overall pick in 2024 — those White Sox were 27-71 on the day he was drafted — Smith was selected with the idea that he could one day start a postseason game, once the Sox launched themselves out of their deep rebuild. These likely weren’t quite the circumstances the organization envisioned; Smith still has a lot to prove to become a reliable major-league starting pitcher. But the 23-year-old was up to the task Tuesday, providing three scoreless innings, including coaxing a pair of harmless groundouts from AL MVP favorite Yordan Alvarez.
Shortly after Smith strolled off the mound the third time, the White Sox got their biggest swing of the game courtesy of Colson Montgomery. The 24-year-old shortstop was batting ninth for Chicago, dropped to the bottom of the batting order after finishing the regular season on a miserable 4-for-62 skid that saw him break the MLB record for strikeouts in a season, with 227.
But Montgomery has titanic, left-handed power. It was lying dormant during his brutal slump, but it produced 31 home runs before that, making him a uniquely dangerous threat at the bottom of Chicago’s lineup. And leading off the fourth, Montgomery reminded everyone of his prodigious pop, crushing an 0-2 fastball up and away from Ullola to straightaway center field for a 432-foot solo homer that made it 4-0 White Sox.
From there, Chicago’s ride to the finish was a little bumpy, giving the ultra-young roster its first taste of the nerve-wracking nature of postseason baseball. Nelson Velazquez got the Astros on the board in the fifth with a pinch-hit, two-run homer off Sean Newcomb that made it 5-2, but Chicago responded with an insurance run a couple of innings later, when left-hander Bennett Sousa — Houston’s sixth pitcher — uncorked a wild pitch that enabled Murakami to scamper home from third.
Advertisement
The Astros produced some more pressure in the eighth inning — a two-out Jose Altuve RBI infield single made it 6-3 — but White Sox right-hander Grant Taylor navigated the jam with a nasty strikeout of Yainer Diaz to strand two runners.
Taylor returned for the ninth and worked around a leadoff walk to wrap up an impressive seven-out save, finishing with 54 pitches — the highest pitch count of his major-league career and the most he has thrown since he tossed 59 in Double-A on April 16, 2025. It was quite the effort from Chicago’s best bullpen arm and a worthy one to nail down a Game 1 victory, though it likely renders him unavailable for Game 2 on Wednesday.
The White Sox won’t be alone in possibly dealing with a limited bullpen moving forward. Although the eighth-inning Astros rally was cut short, it was enough to motivate Espada to bring in closer Josh Hader for the top of the ninth despite trailing three runs. Hader threw only 11 pitches in a scoreless frame, but if the Astros are counting on him to close out the next two games, should Houston rally back, that would mean asking Hader to do something he hasn’t done since September 2023: pitch three days in a row.
Advertisement
But those are problems for tomorrow and Thursday. For now, all Houston can do is reset and hope Brown can deliver an ace-like effort in Game 2 and limit the beleaguered bullpen’s exposure, whether or not that includes Hader. The White Sox will give the ball to Burke, who doesn’t wield the high-powered arsenal of Brown but has been a steady presence atop Chicago’s rotation all season.
It took until Game 162 for the Astros to know for sure they’d be playing in the postseason. Now they’re facing elimination before the calendar even flips to October.
Read the full article here