After dropping the opening game of this fight for first place yesterday, the White Sox honored Ozzie Guillén in his No. 13 retirement ceremony this afternoon — and that turned out to be a perfect time to bounce back and complement the ceremonies with a win.
Win they did, in decisive, 6-3 fashion. And it all started with Anthony Kay.
Early on, Kay found himself in the middle of a jam in the second inning. With runners on the corners, Austin Hedges bunted back to Anthony, who scooped and threw the ball
home in one swift motion. Drew Romo caught a Rhys Hoskins pivoting back to third base and threw a perfect bullet to Miguel Vargas. Initially called safe by third base umpire Austin Jones (who was not in the best position to view the tag and the bag), a Will Venable challenge quickly confirmed Vargas tagged Hoskins’ back before his foot returned to the bag safely.
The Chicago defense stayed locked in during the following inning. A diving Chase Meidroth stole a base hit from Chase DeLauter, who was running side-by-side with Kay but lost the race, as Kay located the bag and caught Chase’s accurate bullet:
Joining his battery mate, Romo stayed hot on defense as well (a sentence I did not have on my bingo card entering tonight’s game), as he threw out Angel Martínez trying to steal second to send the Sox to the home half of the third inning.
From there, Kay and Gavin Williams would each swap goose eggs until the sixth inning.
Rhys Hoskins, looking to amend his bad baserunning, launched a two-run shot 392 feet to the left-field stands to break open the scoring and give Cleveland a 2-0 lead.
While the FOX broadcast was eating the Muneshot sushi push-pops during the home half of the sixth, Munetaka Murakami found the left-field foul pole and hit his second home run in as many games, cutting Cleveland’s lead in half, 2-1.
Soon after, Miguel Vargas snuck a hit past a diving Angel Genao. Williams would stay in the game to strike out Colson Montgomery, but he would not stay in the game to finish the inning.
Reliever Colin Holderman, with two outs, hit Andrew Benintendi (1-2 count) and Braden Montgomery (2-2 count) to load the bases. Tristan Peters, with six hits in his 59 at-bats since the All-Star break, broke through and flipped a ball to left-center field, bringing home Vargy and Benny and giving the Sox their first lead of the night, 3-2.
That closed the book on Williams, with this final line: 5 2/3 IP, 3 H, 2 R, 2 BB, 7 K.
Chase Meidroth, complementing his Gold Glove-caliber defense, continued the two-out, two-RBI hit parade with a bloop single down the right-field line, extending the Sox lead to 5-2.
With Kay in now in line for the win, Jordan Hicks replaced the southpaw in the seventh. Working through some trouble, Kay notched back-to-back quality starts: 6 IP, 6 H, 1 BB, 4 K.
Hicks sat down Patrick Bailey, pinch-hitting for Austin Hedges, with four pitches, but that would be his only easy batter of the night. He proceeded to give up Genao’s first career homer and allowed back-to-back hits from Steven Kwan and Jo Adell to put ducks on the pond with only one out.
Sean Newcomb, a face Sox fans were dying to see in their 13-inning spar against Boston, replaced Hicks. Ice in his veins, he struck out DeLauter looking. Then, on a 0-2 count to Martínez, Newcomb was taken to the deepest part of the ball park, but we had a man there! Peters chased down a 101.1 mph baseball 395 feet in left-center for the final out of the top half of the seventh.
Bryan Hudson pitched the eighth and worked around just one hit.
Looking for some daylight, Colson Montgomery singled on a full count to open the home half of the eighth. Luisangel Acuña pinch-ran for Colson, stole second and advanced to third on a bad throw all in one play. Braden Montgomery, reminiscent of his first career hit, slapped one the opposite way to drive in Acuña and extend the lead, 6-3.
Aiming for his sixth save in his ninth attempt, Grant Taylor was successful behind Vargas, who making a tough pick on a ground ball, and Murakami diving for the final out of the ball game. Sox win!
The Good Guys evened up the series against the Guardians and regained their three-game lead in the AL Central, with the Minnesota Twins taking a loss against the Milwaukee Brewers (shout out old friend, Andrew Vaughn, for the game-winning hit!).
Catch the rubber match at 1:10 p.m. CT tomorrow, back on the usual CHSN for your viewing pleasure.
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MVP
Anthony Kay: 6.0 IP, 6 H, 2 R, 1 BB, 4 K
Runners-Up
Tristan Peters: 1-for-2, 2 RBI, 1 R, 1 BB
Chase Meidroth: 1-for-4, 2 RBI
Munetaka Murakami: 1-for-3, 1 HR, 1 RBI, 1 R
Sean Newcomb: 0.2 IP, 1 K, stranded runners on second and third
Cold Cat
Jordan Hicks: 1/3 IP, 3 H, 1 R, 1 K
Runners-Up
Sam Antonacci: 0-for-4
Colson Montgomery: 1-for-4, 3 K
Drew Romo: 0-for-4, 1 K
