Adrian Houser tosses six two-hit innings in debut as White Sox beat the Mariners, 1-0

The bullpen also showed up ready to play, though the South Side offense mustered just one run on seven hits

After a 90-minute rain delay, plenty of fans surprisingly stuck around to see the White Sox (15-34) defeat the Mariners (27-20), 1-0, in what was essentially a do-over of Monday’s game for the South Siders.

Adrian Houser made his debut for the White Sox, and it was a beauty. He allowed a hit to the first batter he faced, but rebounded with no problem. On the next at-bat, Houser forced Jorge Polanco to ground into a double play, and though he walked Julio Rodríguez, Houser got Cal Raleigh to pop out to end the inning. Not a bad outcome considering Polanco is leading the Mariners in OPS (.970), and Raleigh is fourth in the league in home runs (15).

Houser only gave up one hit the first time through the Seattle lineup, and went 1-2-3 in the second, where he also earned his first strikeout with Chicago, ringing up Leody Taveras to end the frame. Houser nearly sat the M’s down in order again in the third, but walked JP Crawford before getting the final out of the inning.

The South Side offense jumped on M’s starter Casey Legumina in the first, getting two baserunners right off the bat — a base hit from Chase Meidroth and a walk from Josh Rojas, leaving the heart of the order with runners in scoring position. But in true White Sox fashion, they couldn’t get it done, and Joshua Palacios, Miguel Vargas, and Luis Robert Jr. went down in order to end the inning.

Seattle decided to go with an opener on Tuesday, and the Sox faced a new pitcher in the second as Casey Lawrence entered the game. Lenyn Sosa didn’t seem to care who was pitching and ripped a 110 mph, two-out double to left to keep the inning going, but Tim Elko popped out in the infield to end the threat.

Meidroth led off the third with his second base hit of the day before stealing his seventh base of the year — his fourth in his last five games. Meidroth once again manufactured a run by getting into scoring position, and Joshua Palacios delivered this time around, driving a hard grounder through the right side to score Meidroth for the contest’s first and only run.

Vargas kept the inning going by winning a nine-pitch at-bat and weaseled a bloop single to short center, just for Robert to ground into a double play to third and end the inning. The bottom of the fourth was no different as Sosa posted his second base hit of the game, but Elko struck out. Since joining the team, Elko has had a mixed performance. He has just four hits (.154 BA), two being home runs. He also has struck out eight times at a 28% strikeout rate, and is starting to give Joey Gallo vibes, but hopefully, he can turn it around.

This game started to really give me déjà vu from Monday as the game was still just 1-0 in the fifth, but this time the South Siders (shockingly) had the one-run advantage. Houser had been lights out and kept it rolling in the fifth inning. He walked his third batter of the game, but bailed himself out by forcing a double play to Vargas with a nice turn by Sosa at second to get out of the frame.

Houser had 73 pitches through five, though his main flaw was that he had one more walk than he had strikeouts. He faced the Mariners lineup for the third time through in the sixth, and Crawford nearly sent one deep to right to tie the game, but Palacios was able to run it down in the corner. Houser made a slick move on the next batter and picked off J-Rod to get out of the inning and wrap up an excellent — and scoreless — first start.

Outside of the one run scored in the third, the rain seemed to really be affecting both offenses. The Mariners only had three hits heading into the eighth, and outside of a couple rogue hits from Sosa and Palacios, the White Sox bats were a little too quiet. It left a chaotic South Side bullpen with hardly any run support.

My thoughts exactly:

The plot twist for tonight was that the bullpen held their own this time around. Entering the game in relief in the seventh was Brandon Eisert, who retired Seattle in order for a clean inning to maintain the lead. Steven Wilson came out for the eighth, and things got a bit dicey after he gave up a lead off double to Taveras to put the tying run in scoring position. Wilson forced a fly out to left, which kept Taveras at second, but hit the next batter to put the go-ahead run aboard.

Ethan Katz and Will Venable turned to Cam Booser with one out and two on, who had just given up a grand slam the night before to Rodríguez. Prior to giving up the slam Monday, he walked a batter to load the bases — and the déjà vu started to hit way harder as Booser walked the first batter he faced tonight as well.

Cam had me and likely all Sox fans shaking in our boots, getting a full count but coming through with a clutch strikeout on a sweeper for the second out of the inning. In an insanely high-leverage situation, J-Rod and Booser rematched from yesterday. It was the highest leverage point in the game, with a 6.98 LI; fortunately, it went way better than Monday. Booser got ahead in the count before getting Julio to fly out to Robert in center and end the scoring threat. Booser’s rebound performance is obviously directly attributed to shaving off his big beard, because it wouldn’t be baseball without a little quirky superstition.

Yet again, the offense was non-existent in the bottom of the eighth, and righthander Gabe Speier struck out the side with three pathetic at-bats, and Michael A. Taylor and Vargas went down looking.

Seattle had their final attempt to tie the game in the ninth against Jordan Leasure, who was out to get the save for the South Side. Leasure got Raleigh to pop out, decided run support was no longer necessary, and struck out the final two batters to close out the game and end the losing streak. Finally, the arm barn was able to come through and secure the win for Houser in his first start for the Sox.