The first two Washington Nationals batters reached with a walk and a double in the third inning Saturday, giving the visitors runners on second and third with no outs.<\/p>\n
Chicago White Sox starter Noah Schultz rebounded, striking out James Wood looking and former Sox infielder Curtis Mead swinging.<\/p>\n
Andr\u00e9s Chaparro hit a grounder back up the middle, but Sox shortstop Colson Montgomery made a diving stop and then threw to first, where Munetaka Murakami had an impressive scoop as the Oswego East graduate got out of the inning without allowing a run.<\/p>\n
Photos: Washington Nationals 6, Chicago White Sox 3 (10)<\/a><\/p>\n<\/p>\n Schultz pumped his fist and yelled, \u201cCome on,\u201d as he made his way back to the dugout.<\/p>\n \u201cJust great defense behind me,\u201d Schultz said. \u201cUnbelievable play from Colson, pick from Mune, that was awesome. It\u2019s awesome to see that. It\u2019s great because I can be so confident in the guys behind me, helping me out a ton.\u201d<\/p>\n Schultz helped the Sox hang around before they ultimately suffered a 6-3 loss in 10 innings in front of 35,174 at Rate Field, the largest crowd for a non-opening-day April home game for the Sox since April 29, 2007, against the Angels (38,513).<\/p>\n Saturday\u2019s large crowd witnessed a low-scoring contest for most of the afternoon.<\/p>\n Nasim Nu\u00f1ez drove in two with a single in the fourth inning to give the Nationals a 2-0 lead. The Sox evened the score with two runs in the eighth. Everson Pereira knocked in one with a single and Chase Meidroth tied the score with a sacrifice fly.<\/p>\n The game went into extra innings, where the Nationals scored four in the 10th.<\/p>\n Washington took advantage of three walks, one intentional, and a run-scoring passed ball charged to catcher Drew Romo in the inning. Nu\u00f1ez completed a four-RBI day with a two-run single. Reliever Jordan Leasure allowed three earned runs on two hits with three walks and two strikeouts in two-thirds of an inning.<\/p>\n Munetaka Murakami keeps making adjustments at the plate \u2014 and keeps belting home runs for Chicago White Sox<\/a><\/p>\n<\/p>\n \u201cThis one is one where on the pitching side, we just have to find ways to be more effective in the zone,\u201d manager Will Venable said. \u201cWe understand how that hurts us. On the offensive side, we have to find ways to score.<\/p>\n \u201cThis isn\u2019t one of those losses where you start over and gather up all those things we have to do differently. We know what we have to do to go out there and be effective. We just have to do a better job.\u201d<\/p>\n Sox batters struck out 14 times. Sox pitchers combined for 15 strikeouts, including a career-high eight from Schultz.<\/p>\n \u201cFelt good,\u201d Schultz said. \u201cA lot of things I was working on. A lot of things, good things I did, bad things I did.\u201d<\/p>\n Schultz allowed two runs on four hits with the eight strikeouts and four walks in six innings.<\/p>\n \u201cI thought he did an outstanding job,\u201d Venable said of Schultz. \u201cYou get six innings, two runs there. The runs were a result of the free passes there (back to back walks to begin the fourth). I thought he did a great job. Good start by Noah.\u201d<\/p>\n Saturday marked Schultz\u2019s third outing<\/a> since being called up from Triple-A Charlotte on April 14<\/a>. He has a 3.52 ERA and 18 strikeouts in 15 1\/3 innings.\u00a0Venable sees the left-hander getting \u201cmore and more comfortable.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t think that confidence is ever an issue for him,\u201d Venable said. \u201cHe\u2019s a very confident guy. Each one of these starts we see the confidence grow in his ability to be effective in the zone. When he\u2019s not effective in the zone, he gets back in the zone. So just continuing to develop into a really good starter for us.\u201d<\/p>\n Schultz, 22, saw plenty of areas to learn from after the career-high 85-pitch outing.<\/p>\n \u201cI wish I threw a couple more changeups in there today,\u201d Schultz said. \u201cSomething obviously to work on for next week. Being able to use all five pitches the way I want, definitely. A lot of things that I wish I improved on today, but at the end of the day, things that I definitely need to work on.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The first two Washington Nationals batters reached with a walk and a double in the third inning Saturday,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":682965,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[2398],"tags":[5,1001,49,10448,14899,10857,4,73,415,10557,414,71,4222,998],"class_list":{"0":"post-682964","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-washington-nationals","8":"tag-baseball","9":"tag-chase-meidroth","10":"tag-chicago-white-sox","11":"tag-colson-montgomery","12":"tag-drew-romo","13":"tag-everson-pereira","14":"tag-mlb","15":"tag-munetaka-murakami","16":"tag-nationals","17":"tag-noah-schultz","18":"tag-washington","19":"tag-washington-nationals","20":"tag-washingtonnationals","21":"tag-will-venable"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116468849294189226","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/682964","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=682964"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/682964\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/682965"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=682964"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=682964"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=682964"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}