Luis Castillo looked like a different pitcher on Wednesday night. The right-hander struck out 10 over seven innings and allowed one hit as the Chicago White Sox beat the Cincinnati Reds 5-0, giving him his first win with Chicago.
The performance mattered because Castillo was brought in from Seattle on Aug. 1 to steady a rotation that needed exactly this kind of start. Instead, he had been tagged for five runs over four innings in his White Sox debut at Boston last week, a rough opening that made this outing feel more than just another regular-season win.
Chicago got the offense it needed behind him. Chase Meidroth and Drew Romo homered, Sam Antonacci finished with three hits, and the White Sox won for the third time in four games after blowing a 4-0 lead in a 5-4 loss in the series opener one day earlier. Romo connected in the third for his first homer since May 25, his sixth of the year, and Meidroth followed with his 12th in the sixth after Colson Montgomery singled.
Castillo also worked with the kind of command Chicago had been waiting for. He walked two and kept Cincinnati off balance for most of the night, which stood in sharp contrast to his debut last week, when traffic came quickly and the damage piled up. Facing his former team added another layer, since he began his big league career with Cincinnati in 2017.
There was one more mark of control late. Romo singled home Montgomery in the eighth, Hagen Smith handled the eighth for Chicago, and Huascar Brazobán finished the two-hitter. Munetaka Murakami extended his on-base streak to 27 games with a two-out walk in the fifth, tying Cleveland's Steven Kwan for the longest active streak in the majors.
The win gave Chicago the start it wanted from the arm it acquired for a reason. If Castillo keeps pitching anywhere near this level, the trade looks less like a midseason gamble and more like the kind of move that can change how the White Sox finish their year. Andrew Abbott is scheduled to start for Cincinnati in Thursday's series finale, with Davis Martin lined up for Chicago.
