Keuchel’s gem gives glimpse to greatness

CHICAGO -- If not for a rare August night where the ball didn’t carry at Guaranteed Rate Field, White Sox southpaw Dallas Keuchel might have won the first three starts of a season for the first time in his career.

Instead, Keuchel settled for a stellar seven-inning effort in a 1-0 loss to the Brewers on Wednesday at Guaranteed Rate Field. The setback ended the White Sox winning streak at six and dropped them to 7-5 overall and 1-3 at home.

• Box score

Luis Robert and Yoán Moncada both barely missed go-ahead home runs in the eighth off reliever David Phelps. But Avisaíl García chased down Robert’s drive near the right-center-field warning track, and Ben Gamel made a nice running catch in right-center to corral Moncada’s line drive. Eloy Jiménez and Milwaukee’s Ryon Healy also had blasts to right fall well shorter than they looked off the bat in what turned out to be a true pitchers' duel.

“The one that I kind of was worried about was Healy's fly ball to right. I left a cutter kind of just spun up there and it was high,” Keuchel said. “He got it up. I thought it was going to be gone.

“I was saying my prayers that it was going to stay in the park, and sure enough, it just kind of died at the warning track. But yeah, it wasn't carrying as much as it usually does here. I'm thankful for it, but I would definitely like to see those guys' balls carry a little bit more as well."

Keuchel struck out eight and induced 17 swinging strikes, per Statcast, over 97 pitches, as he became the first White Sox starting pitcher to go beyond six innings this season. His only blemish came in the third when he allowed consecutive singles to Mark Mathias, Orlando Arcia and Eric Sogard to score the game’s lone run. But even in that inning, with runners on first and third and one out, Keuchel struck out Keston Hiura and García to end the threat.

In his first two starts combined, Keuchel only fanned three over 10 2/3 innings. His durability on Wednesday also allowed White Sox manager Rick Renteria to only use one reliever, Codi Heuer, who tossed two scoreless innings.

"Early on, I was making some good pitches down and away to the righties,” Keuchel said. “After that, that kind of opens the whole zone for me. I was fortunate to make some good pitches inside as well.

“There in the third, they kind of made some adjustments on me. They went the other way, attacked the shift. Arcia, who is pretty much a dead-red pull or up-the-middle guy, he openly went the other way. At that point, that was kind of when me and [catcher James] McCann started going a lot of early pitches in and then late pitches in. Credit McCann for another great game. I was just trying to make as many pitches as I could."

Danny Mendick had a career-high three hits of the six for the White Sox. Robert extended his hitting streak to five games with a first inning infield single off of Brewers starter Adrian Houser and has hit in 11 of his first 12 big league games. But Keuchel was denied a spot in the daily postgame dance party with Mendick and Zack Collins, as the White Sox fell short for the first time since last Tuesday.

“We are going to [get] some more dances up there for everybody,” Mendick said. “I’ll tell you what, we are dangerous.”

“It’s nice to see Houser go deep in the game and put up the numbers that he put up today,” said Brewers closer Josh Hader, who capped a 1-2-3 ninth. “Really holding [down] those hitters. Those guys, they can swing the bat. They’re known for putting up runs and hitting homers and all that stuff. For us to hold them to a shutout, that’s definitely what you’re looking for.”