Comeback-kid Sox take game and series, 2-1

Davis Martin earned the spiritual win today, if not the statistical one. | Matt Marton-Imagn Images Though things looked precarious for a moment there, but the Davis Martin Hype Train choo-choos on! In the first inning, it looked as if the 29-year-old’s magical run to start this interesting 2026 campaign might finally be at its end.

Martin struggled to put hitters away early, letting in a run in the first inning — just the second time this season he’s been tagged for a tally in the first — when Julio Rodríguez drove a double into the left field gap, moved to third on a wild pitch and ultimately scored on a Randy Arozarena poke into center field. View Link With those hits sandwiching a nine-pitch walk of Josh Naylor, it was one of the more laborious innings we’ve seen from Martin in a while. At that point, I was bracing myself for the inevitable turning of Martin’s luck.

Wrong. Martin gritted his teeth, dug in, and proceeded to allow just two baserunners over his final five innings, one via hit and one via walk. And it wasn’t all soft contact, either — Martin has become a bona fide whiff machine, tying the career high he set just six days ago with 19 swinging strikes.

His pitch chart is a thing of beauty, showing how effectively and consistently located his fastballs up and to the glove side, paired with a healthy dose of changeups and breaking balls just below the zone — more or less exactly where you want them. Unfortunately, Martin was robbed of what should have been his sixth win of the season by virtue of Seattle starter Logan Gilbert, who the White Sox simply couldn’t touch in what was easily his best start of the season. That the White Sox managed to win a game in which the opposing hurler twirled six one-hit innings, facing just a hair over the minimum, seems like an alien idea.