An 18-pitch walk opened the White Sox's 7-3 win in Cleveland

Chicago won 7-3, but for five innings Gavin Williams did the hard part of a starter's night. He struck out seven, allowed four hits and three walks, and kept the game scoreless through five. That is not a free evening on the mound. That is real labor, and it gave Cleveland a tight game to carry into the middle innings.

The pitch count tells the same story with less mercy. Williams needed 113 pitches to face 24 batters, and his three largest pitch buckets were 44 four-seamers, 29 curveballs and 26 sweepers. He started the sixth with the score still 0-0, gave up a leadoff single to Andrew Benintendi, and two batters into the inning he was gone with two runners aboard and no run yet on the board.

That is why the line can read harsher than the outing felt. Williams was charged with two earned runs and took the loss, but the game had been held in place by his work for most of the night. He kept Chicago off the scoreboard until the one stretch where every pitch started to cost a little more.

The sixth did not arrive out of nowhere. Tristan Peters turned a 1-2 count into an 18-pitch walk, which is baseball's way of making an inning change shape before the scoreboard admits it. After Williams got ahead on the third pitch of the plate appearance, Peters fouled off 12 two-strike pitches and took three balls. By the time he reached first, Benintendi was at second, there were no outs, and Cleveland was into its bullpen.

Chicago used the opening immediately. Colson Montgomery's fielder's choice brought Benintendi home on Lowe's throwing error. Chase Meidroth singled Peters in. Kyle Teel doubled to left and scored Montgomery and Meidroth, even with Grichuk thrown out at the plate. Then Miguel Vargas finished the heavy work with a two-run homer to left. Four scoring plays, six runs, and a scoreless game was suddenly 6-0.

People tend to remember only that the White Sox had a six-run sixth. The better memory is narrower. One at-bat kept refusing to end, and the inning never really relaxed after that. Chicago still had to cash the chance, and it did, four different times.

Cleveland's clearest opening after the rally came in the bottom of the seventh, and Hagen Smith met it before it could grow. Chicago led 6-1 when Travis Bazzana doubled with no outs, leaving Smith to enter with an inherited runner on second. That is the part of a game where a big inning can start feeling smaller in a hurry.

Smith did not let it move. Angel Martínez struck out swinging on three pitches. David Fry struck out swinging four pitches later. Patrick Bailey worked the count to 2-2 and took a cutter for strike three. Three batters, three strikeouts, inherited runner stranded, lead still 6-1.

The six-run inning will get the louder memory, and fairly so. This part mattered too. Chicago had done the loud work with the bats; Smith handled the quieter job every dugout notices right away, entering someone else's trouble and leaving it right where he found it.