White Sox 5, Red Sox 4: Elvis Andrus Delivers Walk-Off Hit
Leading 4-3 in the ninth inning, it sure looked like the Chicago White Sox would find a way to hold off Boston. The de facto closer, Kendall Graveman, struck out Rob Refsnyder for the second out with nobody on and facing Jarren Duran. For a moment, it looked like the game was sealed.
But Duran singled to center after it was deflected by Tim Anderson, still playing second base, and things got weird. Duran quickly stole second base and advanced to third base off a wild pitch from Graveman. Facing veteran Justin Turner, Gravemen threw a slider off the plate. Yet, Turner got enough bat on the pitch for a duck snort single with an exit velocity of 68 mph. It was enough to score Duran, and suddenly the Red Sox tied the game.
In the bottom half, lady luck sided with the White Sox. Pinch hitting for Clint Frazier, Gavin Sheets hit a hard grounder at Red Sox first baseman Triston Casas who couldn’t handle it. Sheets reached on a single, and manager Pedro Grifol called for Zach Remillard to pinch run for Sheets.
It didn’t take long for Remillard to be on the move. He stole second base for his first major league career steal, setting the stage for Elvis Andrus. Down 0-1 in the count facing Red Sox closer Kenley Jansen, Andrus got enough bat on an inside cutter to hit a duck snort single to right center field. Jansen knew immediately what the outcome was as he began to walk straight to the dugout without looking at Remillard rounding third base and coming home. Despite blowing the lead with two outs in the ninth inning, the White Sox countered with their two-out ninth-inning rally to win 5-4.
Today’s story before the ninth inning was about the White Sox’s solo home run offense and Lance Lynn. Starting with the offense, it took four solo home runs for the White Sox to have a lead.
- 2nd Inning: Yasmani Grandal’s solo home run
- 5th Inning: Jake Burger’s solo home run
- 6th Inning: Luis Robert Jr.’s solo home run
- 6th Inning: Andrew Vaughn’s solo home run
A solo home run is a better outcome than a ground ball, but with four dingers, it would have helped if somebody was on base for any of these long shots. Alas, the White Sox only had one walk on the day, which belonged to Frazier.
Meanwhile, Lynn tried his best to follow up a 16-strikeout outing against Seattle. Boston took the first lead in the second inning as Rafael Devers and Casas singled. Devers reached third base, which was important as Christian Arroyo hit a deep enough liner to Robert in center field for a sacrifice fly.
That’s all the offense Boston could muster until the sixth inning when Lynn was approaching 100 pitches. There must be some rule within the White Sox organization that Lynn must throw 100 or more pitches every outing. After he got Adam Duvall to pop out to second base, Lynn had two outs with Devers on first base after walking. Next was Casas, who had already singled off Lynn, and everyone knew about his struggles against left-handed hitters.
On the second pitch of the at-bat, Lynn could only muster 89.5 mph on a cutter that Casas took him out to the right center field. That two-run homer gave Boston a 3-2 lead. After allowing a double to Arroyo, that was enough for Grifol. Lynn finished at 5.2 IP 6 H 3 ER 1 BB 7 K on 105 pitches. His season ERA drops to 6.40 on the season.
Game Notes:
- Gregory Santos continues to impress as he pitched another scoreless inning allowing one hit and striking out one. His season ERA is now 2.75 in 2023.
- Andrew Benintendi likes hitting leadoff. He went 3-for-4 which bumps his season AVG to .283 in 2023.
- Tim Anderson went 0-for-4 as he started at second base. His season OPS is now .561.
- The White Sox are 10-10 in June.
Record: 33-45 | Box Score | StatCast
Author
“Bring dynamite and a crane / Blow it up, start all over again.”
— John David Loudermilk, “Tobacco Road:
Because how the Sox win and lose these games they always seem to leave a bad taste in the mouth but if you looked at how the Sox schedule was heading into June and they’re 10-10 through the 24th a lot of us would’ve been surprised by that result. But in typical fashion for this team losing 10 in a row kinda makes .500 against a tough schedule not good enough. This teams offense is just not capable of putting win streaks together.
Also i respect Tim for trying to play though the pain but put him in the IL already. Its just hurting the team especially if Pedro refuses to drop him lower then 2nd in the order.
The 3 previous series have been LWL. Will the streak continue? Hope not!
Side note: I saw 24-0 as the Angels vs Rox score in the 6th and Trout/Ohtani have done relatively little damage. Wow!
Nice that they won but their mistakes keep costing them. There was a Vaughn error with two outs just before the 2 run home run. And Frazier was caught stealing after his walk, against a struggling pitcher, which was followed by two hits, ergo costing another run.
Maybe we need a new manager to get back to the fundamentals.
Another glaring example of Grifol not learing and getting smarter by force feeding Lynn to the RSox with a high pitch count.
I also found myself asking the same question Jim asked yesterday, is TA even playable, and the answer is no. I love rooting for Remillard but reality knows he is who he is. Who he is, is a better player than TA right now. Then we have Popeye sitting on the bench who came up swinging a hot bat, and he doesn’t get a look?
Grifol has proven to me that he’s not up to the task of managing a big league club, by a wide margin. Wider than the one separating TA’s ground ball rate from the rest of MLB.
If Robert, Eloy and Burger would move closer to the plate their consistency and production would increase significantly.