HOUSTON — In Tuesday’s Game 1 of the American League wild-card series, Chicago White Sox rookie left hander Hagen Smith found himself in uncharted territory: making his first postseason start and facing the reigning AL batting title winner.
He didn’t blink.
Smith spun three scoreless innings and helped the White Sox deliver a deluxe version of a bullpen game in a 6-3 win over the Houston Astros at Daikin Park, putting Chicago on the precipice of advancing to the AL Division Series for the first time since 2021.
“It was awesome,” Smith told USA TODAY Sports. “From the first day out here, the guys on the team have just been awesome. It’s super fun to show up every day and just play with them, so I was really happy to go out there with them.”
Facing a Houston lineup known for its power, Smith surrendered two hits, singles to Isaac Paredes and Cam Smith, and stifled one of the most dangerous hitters in baseball. AL MVP candidate Yordan Alvarez went 0-for-2 with two groundouts against Smith.
“He’s a great hitter,” Smith said of Alvarez after the game. “Obviously, when you look at the scouting reports you kind of circle him as one of the guys that you try not to let him beat you. And, yeah, just trying to go to go out there and do the same thing I always do. Just not make the moment too big for that certain hitter, and just try to attack him with my strengths.”
After Smith’s start, the White Sox used three relievers – Jordan Hicks, Sean Newcomb and David Sandlin – as a bridge to closer Grant Taylor. Taylor secured seven laborious outs, the biggest among them when he stifled a Houston rally in the eighth inning by striking out Yainer Diaz, who represented the potential tying run with two on base and two outs.
On the other side, the Astros used eight pitchers in total after rookie opener AJ Blubaugh walked three of the five batters he faced and didn’t even get out of the first inning. Bryan King gave up two runs on four hits while finishing the first inning. Miguel Ullola briefly stabilized the home team but couldn’t stop the bleeding as the White Sox hit .324 with four walks. The crowd in Houston, accustomed to postseason dominance, booed Astros pitchers on multiple occasions.
White Sox manager Will Venable said Smith’s outing “couldn’t have gone better” for the visitors, who head into Wednesday’s Game 2 with a chance to avenge an ALDS loss to the Astros from five years ago.
Smith, a former collegiate starter, was primed for the moment.
The University of Arkansas product was drafted fifth overall by the White Sox in the first round of the 2024 MLB Draft and made his major-league debut out of the bullpen on Aug. 9 of this year. Since then, the White Sox have mostly utilized him as a middle reliever capable of covering multiple innings.
Smith went 3-3 with a 1.29 ERA in 28 innings pitched this season, the lowest ERA by a White Sox pitcher over his first 18 career outings since 1912.
Although Smith changed elements of his routine when he became a reliever, he said he prides himself on “being able to go out there ready to roll” and said his familiarity with starting helped him prepare to be the White Sox opener against the Astros.
After the game, Smith stopped in a back hallway and greeted a half dozen family members, many of them wearing his White Sox jersey.
Smith grew up as a Texas Rangers fan in the eastern Texas town of Bullard, about a two-hour drive from Dallas and three hours from Houston. The Rangers and Astros were both potential wild-card opponents for the White Sox, but Smith said he didn’t have a preference for one matchup over the other.
Before Tuesday, Smith had started just one other game in his big-league career and had never faced the Astros. He pitched three innings for just the second time in his young career and threw 28 of his 38 pitches for strikes. Smith leaned heavily on his slider and cutter, two pitches that generated a 33% whiff rate against the Astros.
“The newness is always kind of tough, right?” Astros manager Joe Espada said. “Kind of cross-fire, tough angle. His pitches do have some kind of difficult shape that keeps you off balance. He did a nice job of doing that. Once we got into the middle of the game, I thought we were more familiar with those guys, we’d seen ’em before and that’s when our offense started clicking a little bit. But not enough just to get it to that finish line.”
Smith, 23, is emblematic of a young White Sox roster with barely any postseason experience. Although the team’s run to its first postseason in five years has been characterized as improbable, those inside the clubhouse say they always believed it was possible.
“I think just all the guys in the clubhouse, you see the team play – we play super hard and play with our hearts,” Smith said. “I think it’s just very contagious for everybody and everybody wants each other to win. I think that’s a big part of it.”
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Astros deliver dud in bullpen game battle vs. White Sox
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