White Sox 4, Mariners 3 (11 innings): Zach Remillard to the rescue

I spent this game catching it here and there while trying, and ultimately succeeding, to replace a mailbox post. Throw in a couple of thermostat swaps tomorrow, and I’m taking Father’s Day weekend as far as it will go.

Bullet-point recap:

*Zach Remillard, the Capital Region native who played his high school ball in Troy, made a specific kind of MLB history with his MLB debut. Not only did he go 3-for-3 with a walk, but the White Sox announced that he became the first player to deliver the game-tying hit and the game-winning hit in the ninth inning or later in his very first game.

*Remillard tied the game by muscling a single through the left side to score Elvis Andrus, who led off with a single and moved into scoring position on an Andrew Benintendi walk. Two innings later — and after both teams squandered their Zombie Runner in the 10th — Remillard cashed in Andrus with a line drive single to right-center.

*Andrus had to score the hard way. His reaching base was a setback, because the Mariners cut down Jake Burger at third on a grounder to the right side thanks to great positioning and a great throw by Ty France for the rare 3-5 putout. Two batters later, Benintendi kept the inning alive with a hooked single to right off a lefty that put Andrus on third, and brought Remillard to the plate.

*Remillard only played because Tim Anderson — batting somewhere besides the leadoff spot for the first time since 2019 — was pulled due to what the White Sox said was right shoulder soreness in the fourth inning. He had enough time to pull off another head-scratching play in the third, when he reached on a walk to put runners on the corners for Luis Robert Jr. with nobody out. He then tried stealing second when Robert popped it into foul territory on the right side, and Anderson didn’t come close to make it back to first for the inning-ending double play

*While Remillard takes top honors, the second star goes to the White Sox bullpen, which had another long day after Lucas Giolito only went five. Gregory Santos restored order with an 11-pitch sixth, and when Pedro Grifol sent him out for the seventh, he went three-up-three-down on eight pitches. He threw 17 of those 19 pitches for strikes.

*Keynan Middleton and Aaron Bummer followed suit by covering three innings between them. Bummer had the tougher task of stranding the automatic runner in the 10th, but he got off to a good start by striking out France. His intentional walk to Teoscar Hernández almost backfired with a double steal, but Bummer struck out Cal Raleigh, then got Eugenio Suárez to ground out to short.

*Jesse Scholtens capped off the night by recording his first big-league save, even pitching around an error. He struck out Tom Murphy with a fastball well off the plate, but Elvis Andrus booted AJ Pollock’s grounder to the left side. At least Suárez couldn’t advance to third on the play, and he remained there after an infield fly and a game-ending groundout to second. Remillard, fittingly, recorded the last two outs.

*Giolito gave up a homer on his first pitch of the afternoon, and the rest of his start was a slog. He gave up a second run in the first inning when Seby Zavala whiffed catching a changeup with two outs and a runner on third.

*Giolito stranded the bases loaded in the second and eventually recorded a 1-2-3 inning in the fourth, but Julio Rodríguez reached on leadoff single in the fifth, stole second and scored on Hernández’s single through the left side.

*The White Sox were able to get on the board in the second when Eloy Jiménez hit a solo shot off Logan Gilbert, and they were finally able to score without the aid of a homer in the fifth when Robert shot a single through the right side to score Benintendi.

*Benintendi was in the middle of the action at the top of the order. He went 4-for-5 with a double and a walk, and he even reached base in the other at-bat because of an error on what seemed like a routine grounder in the first inning.

*Benintendi, Anderson, Remillard combined to reach 10 times from the top two spots — or 11 if you count the error — but only scored once among them.

*The White Sox were 3-for-18 with runners in scoring position, but the Mariners were 2-for-14.

Record: 31-41 | Box score | Statcast

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