How Michael Wacha led the Royals to their second consecutive shutout of White Sox
Kansas City Royals starter Michael Wacha turned in a vintage performance on Saturday afternoon.
The pitcher did something even Royals manager Matt Quatraro hadn’t seen before.
Wacha began the game with 17 consecutive strikes. He pounded the strike zone with his four-seam fastball, changeup and sinker. The White Sox chased throughout the game: Wacha recorded 44 swings and 15 whiffs, per Statcast.
“I was not aware that it was that many,” Quatraro said. “I knew he was in the (strike) zone a lot. So I don’t know if I had seen that before or not. But it’s highly unlikely.”
With Wacha’s performance and the help of Maikel Garcia at the plate, the Royals earned a 2-0 victory over the Chicago White Sox at Kauffman Stadium.
Garcia scored twice, the first time on his leadoff home run in the first inning and then, after hitting a double, on Vinnie Pasquantino’s sacrifice fly in the eighth.
It was the Royals’ second shutout in as many days.
“We played well enough as a team to win two days in a row,” Quatraro said. “We know you’re not going to sustain long winning streaks scoring two runs. But some days you are going to win 9-8 and that’s fine, too. And we need to do all those things.”
The White Sox (5-10) ran into more good pitching as Wacha turned in another dominant performance. He recorded eight scoreless innings, matching Kris Bubic’s shutout start on Friday night.
“You’ve got to make pitches against them,” Wacha said. “Watching (Bubic’s) start and watching (Seth) Lugo’s start, you know, they executed. They made pitches to where they wanted it to be.”
Chicago finished with four hits, as did the Royals. But Garcia set the tone for the game with one swing. In the first at-bat of the afternoon, he saw a 93.9 mph sinker down the middle of the plate and deposited it over the left-field wall.
“I was trying to do damage in my first at-bat, and that’s what I did today,” Garcia said.
As he trotted around the bases, the Royals celebrated him from the home dugout. It was his third career leadoff homer and first since March 28, 2024, against the Minnesota Twins.
After that, Wacha made sure to keep the White Sox off the scoreboard. Andrew Benintendi and Lenyn Sosa hit doubles for Chicago, but Wacha avoided further trouble and kept his pitch count low.
That allowed him to march through eight innings of shutout baseball.
“I knew kind of going into it the stuff was moving good,” Wacha said. “I had some good command. Had a good game plan going into hit, me and Sal (catcher Salvador Perez). He was pressing the right buttons.”
Wacha entered the eighth inning having throwing just 80 pitches. He retired Tanner Murray, Reese McGuire and Chase Meidroth in order to preserve KC’s one-run lead. After striking out Meidroth, Wacha received a loud ovation from the 16,214 fans in attendance as he walked off the field.
Since joining the Royals, Wacha has had seven quality starts against the White Sox. He now leads the majors with a 0.43 ERA this season.
“The efficiency is what was impressive about it,” Quatraro said. “I mean, he was in control the whole time. He had the curveball and changeup, obviously, and he was getting the fastball to the spots he wanted. He was ahead of everybody. So that was a master class right there.”
Royals closer Lucas Erceg took over in the ninth. He picked up his fifth save as the club secured at least a split in the four-game series.
“We have to get another one tomorrow,” Garcia said. “We don’t want to get two and two (a series split).”
What’s next: Royals left-hander Noah Cameron will start Sunday’s series finale at Kauffman Stadium. Chicago will use right-hander Grant Taylor as an opener. First pitch is set for 1:10 p.m. Central Time.
This story was originally published April 11, 2026 at 5:50 PM.
