HOUSTON — Hagen Smith had no idea how long he’d pitch to open Game 1 of the White Sox’ wild-card series Tuesday against the Astros.
“Just go out there until they told me not to,” he said.
Manager Will Venable revealed that the plan was for the rookie left-hander to face 11 batters. That’s exactly what he did in three scoreless innings, setting up the Sox for a 6-3 victory that put them one win from advancing to the American League Division Series.
“It couldn’t have gone better as far as him setting the tone for the guys, coming in and attacking zone, getting swing and miss,” Venable said. “Did a great job to put us in a really good spot to continue in the middle part of that game.”
Smith began a bullpen game by allowing only two hits, walking none and striking out two. He threw 38 pitches, 28 for strikes.
“Kyle [Teel] did a great job calling the game for me,” Smith said. “Just attacking with everything. A lot of cutters and sliders, just stacking those a lot early and heaters here and there.”
“The newness is always tough,” said Astros manager Joe Espada, whose team faced Smith for the first time. “Kind of crossfire, tough angle. His pitches do have some difficult shapes that keep you off-balance. He did a nice of doing that.”
It continued a run of strong showings by Smith, who had a 1.29 ERA in 18 regular-season outings, one of them to start a game and another to finish a game. In 28 innings, he allowed 11 hits, walked 16 and struck out 41.
The Sox chose him to open because of the Astros’ No. 2 hitter, the left-handed Yordan Alvarez. He’s the leading candidate to win the AL MVP Award after hitting 42 home runs and leading the majors in batting average (.316), on-base percentage (.432) and slugging percentage (.601).
Smith retired him twice, on grounders to second and third.
“You circle him as one of the guys that you try not to let him beat you,” Smith said. “Just try to do the same thing I always do: not make the moment too big for that certain hitter and attack him with my strengths.”
After Smith, the Sox used Jordan Hicks, Sean Newcomb, David Sandlin and Grant Taylor. Though Newcomb allowed a two-run homer to Nelson Velazquez in the fifth, they all flummoxed the Astros.
“I thought that was the difference in the game,” Espada said. “They gave us different arms, different arm angles. They displayed different repertoires. I thought they did a nice job of mixing and matching, and we just couldn’t get anything going.”
Sean Burke will try to keep the Astros in check when he starts Game 2 on Wednesday. With the bullpen accounting for all nine innings Tuesday, the Sox could use a long outing from Burke, who has pitched at least seven innings five times this season.