MILWAUKEE -- At some point, Chris Sale was going to snap out of his slight funk and return to form as one of the best pitchers in baseball.
Unfortunately for the Milwaukee Brewers, it happened against them Tuesday at Miller Park.
Sale returned from a five-game suspension for his role in a brawl with the Kansas City Royals to allow just three hits and two runs over eight innings, as the Chicago White Sox evened the interleague series with a 4-2 victory over the Brewers.
"It's hard to believe he had a five-something ERA coming into this game," Brewers manager Craig Counsell said of Sale. "He was really good. Really good. I've never seen him in person. A lot of our guys haven't, and he's really good."
Sale entered with a 5.93 ERA due to allowing 14 runs over his last two outings, the most over any two-start stretch in his career. The left-hander was hit for nine runs (eight earned) on nine hits over three innings against the Twins on April 30 and surrendered five earned runs over 5 1/3 innings against the Tigers on May 6.
With the way Sale was pitching, the Brewers were fortunate to score two runs Tuesday.
Jean Segura led off the bottom of the first with a triple to the right-center field gap and scored two batters later on a ground out by Ryan Braun. Milwaukee's only other run came on a solo home run by Elian Herrera, which tied the game at 2-all in the bottom of the fifth after the White Sox scored a pair in the top of the frame to take the lead off Mike Fiers.
Sale faced the minimum from the second inning until Herrera's home run leading off the fifth and then sat down 12 of the final 13 batters he faced.
"He hit his spots and pitched a good game," Brewers left fielder Khris Davis said. "It's too bad we didn't get to battle him a little tougher. He was on point tonight. He's a dominant pitcher."
Fiers kept the Brewers in the game, allowing just two earned runs over a season-high 6 1/3 innings. He retired the first 11 batters he faced before the White Sox put two runners on with two outs in the fourth.
Chicago broke through against Fiers in the fifth, as back-to-back doubles by Alexei Ramirez and Tyler Flowers tied the game. Micah Johnson followed with an RBI single to give the White Sox a 2-1 lead.
"I definitely liked the way I threw," Fiers said. "Later in the game, I felt like I could have been a lot better than that. The one inning they put a couple of hits together and got back the lead. But other than that one inning, I felt great.
"(I was) pretty much trying to keep us in the game as long as possible, and was able to do that. We lost in the last couple of innings. I felt good and battled."
For the first time this season, Brewers reliever Michael Blazek struggled with command, as a walk, single, wild pitch and an intentional walk loaded the bases in the eighth. Ramirez broke the tie with a sacrifice fly, while the White Sox added an insurance run off Neal Cotts and Brandon Kintzler in the ninth. That was plenty for the White Sox to hold on behind Sale and closer David Robertson, who worked a perfect ninth for his sixth save.
Sale, who finished third in the voting for the American League Cy Young Award last season with a 2.17 ERA, struck out a season-high 11 over a season-high eight innings Tuesday.
He now owns a 1.13 ERA in two career starts against the Brewers, which includes eight scoreless innings in a pitchers' duel Milwaukee won, 1-0, behind Zack Greinke in Chicago on June 22, 2012.
"That guy's ERA right now doesn't tell the kind of pitcher he is," Fiers said. "But we battled against him. We were right there in the end. Chris Sale got it done. One of those games where you have to tip your cap and get them tomorrow."
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