The margins for error in baseball are incredibly slim. So far this season, the White Sox have taken advantage of opportunities afforded to them, which is why they’re seeing success early in the season. Coming into tonight’s game, they knew they’d have to take advantage of their chances with budding Detroit ace Troy Melton on the mound.
The Tigers have been awful so far this season, and much of their struggles are due to their lack of offense. They came into the game ranked 24th in runs scored, and the White
Sox knew they wouldn’t need to put much on the board to get a win. Unfortunately, the South Siders looked like they were playing with Wiffle ball bats for the first eight innings, as they went 0-for-11 with runners in scoring position and were held to one run.
And that’s not even mentioning the ugly takeaway from this game, in spite of the win: In the bottom of the third, star slugger Munetaka Murakami left the game with hamstring tightness running out a ground ball (postgame, the White Sox indicated an IL stint and a couple of weeks out for Mune).
Hits weren’t much of an issue for the White Sox overall — it was the timing of those hits that was. Chicago outhit the Tigers, 10-4, but it was Detroit that had the upper hand for most of the game. While the Tigers also struggled hitting with runners on, going just 0-for-2 with runners in scoring position, their struggles were offset by a second-inning Dillon Dingler dinger on an Erick Fedde changeup that quite simply had no right to be hit out of the park.
It was an odd change for a White Sox team that was so successful hitting with runners in scoring position against the Minnesota Twins in their last series. The bats will always go cold from time to time, but this game was a stark contrast to the team that hit .311 with RISP over their last four games.
To their credit, the White Sox faithful did everything they could to rally their team. The tarps came off in the stands in the top of the ninth and much like in St. Louis earlier this month, it resulted in a successful rally as the White Sox were able to tie the game on a Rikuu Nishida sacrifice bunt in the bottom of the ninth:
In a long baseball season, these nights are bound to happen to even the best of teams. The difference between the average teams and the good ones is that the good teams find a way to win. The Tigers plated a run in the top of the 10th, and were one out from stealing this win back and possibly turning around their season.
However, the White Sox and Miguel Vargas had other plans. Vargas connected on a juicy changeup from Bengals veteran Drew Anderson and delivered a game-winning bomb that may have been picked up on the radar over at O’Hare. The 30,019 fans went ballistic, and the South Side is surely starting to believe there is magic in the air:
Not many people would’ve expected this result after watching the game, but that’s been Chicago’s M.O. It wasn’t pretty, but the boys scratched and clawed their way and clearly never gave up hope. Only the players and manager truly know exactly what has changed this year in the locker room, but it is clear that their belief in themselves has taken this team to an entirely different level.
For a team that looked like a dead man walking for the majority of the night, they shocked back to life at the perfect time. With the win, the White Sox now have two more cracks at the Tigers to take the series before hitting the road for a six-game stretch.
