Chicago White Sox Pitcher Martín Pérez 'Like A 3-Point Shooter'

Baseball isn't the only sport White Sox manager Will Venable knows well.

At Princeton University, he became the second player in conference history to earn All-Ivy League honors in basketball and baseball, per Ivy50.com . Coincidentally, the first to do so was fellow Princeton graduate Chris Young, Venable's teammate on the San Diego Padres from 2008-10. Venable occasionally calls back to his basketball days, like after Wednesday's game against the Atlanta Braves.

Veteran left-hander Martín Pérez made his first start and second appearance since recovering from a flexor tendon strain injury that had kept him out since April. In his first outing last week against the Detroit Tigers, Pérez came ou t of the bullpen and gave up two hits and a walk against his first three batters, but settled in to retire 10 of the next 12.

Though he didn't receive any run support in Wednesday's 1-0 loss, Pérez was even sharper in his second outing. Pitching 5.1 innings with three hits, one unearned runs, zero earned runs, zero walks and five strikeouts, Pérez's performance led to a basketball comparison from Venable.

"Not surprising. To me, he's kind of like a 3-point shooter that he just needs to find his touch and he's locked in," Venable said. "And I think it took him about three batters in his return to find it, and he's just continued on making good pitches, commanding his stuff and throwing strikes."

Pérez wasted no time getting into a rhythm on Wednesday, inducing soft groundouts to the first two bat ters. After allowing a single to Ronald Acuña Jr., he painted a sinker on the inner half to strike out Marcell Ozuna looking.

He retired eight of the next 10 batters and should have gotten out of the fifth inning with a scoreless tie, but shortstop Colson Montgomery made a fielding error charging in to make a play up the middle, allowing an unearned run to score. Pérez retired the next four batters in order before Venable turned it over to the bullpen, making for a strong outing.

"Martín was outstanding," Venable said. "Command of all of his stuff. Thought he really had that front door sinker working to the righties. Yeah, did an outstanding job."

Unfortunately for Pérez, he was credited with the loss due to the White Sox mustering just four hits and not scoring any runs. Atlanta's rookie right-hander Hurston Waldrep tossed seven shutout innings with seven strikeouts, and the Braves' bullpen didn't allow a single baserunner in two innings.

"Waldrep, really good splitty, knew that coming in. It was extremely effective tonight, and we had to honor that," Venable said. "And he was able to use all his stuff effectively on top of that. So credit to him."

With this defeat, the White Sox lost their fifth consecutive series and haven't won a series since Aug. 2, when they took the first two games from the Los Angeles Angels. Though the White Sox are jus t 5-13 in August, Venable had been feeling better about the team lately, especially after back-to-back games with 13 and 10 runs against the Braves on Monday and Tuesday, respectively.

But Wednesday's rubber match was quite the opposite, as the White Sox were shutout for the first time since Aug. 13 and second time this month.

"That game in general was the opposite of what we saw the first two games. But for me, that game aside, we came into this series not playing very good baseball," Venable said. "And I thought we got back to being where we were at coming out of the break, playing really good baseball all the way around. So disappointing not to scratch out another one here, but really proud of the guys."