Jordan Leasure had an opportunity to record the first real-time save for the White Sox this season, but the White Sox will instead walk away 0-for-2 in that category after Luis Urías' no-doubt walk-off homer in the 10th inning.
Brandon Eisert remains the only White Sox reliever with a save through 28 games, and that was for pitching the seventh and final inning of a rain-shortened affair.
The White Sox converted their Manfred Man in the top of the 10th, but wasting an opportunity for more came back to haunt them. Leasure successfully mitigated the seeminly larger threat by striking out lefty JJ Bleday to open his outing, but when he tried to start the right-handed Urías with a first-pitch fastball at the top of the zone, Urías pounced and started the celebration at Sutter Health Ballpark.
"It's pretty frustrating," said Leasure, who hit 98.6 mph on the gun with his fateful last bullet. "Coming off the mound, coming in here thinking about it, could've threw a slider, could've threw it higher. But at the end of the day, if I could go back in time I'd probably make the same exact pitch and do it again. He just beat me that time and sometimes that happens."
And so Andrew Vaughn's unsuccessful at-bat in the top of the 10th looms larger.
The White Sox absorbed a return to form from Mason Miller in the top of the ninth to face Grant Holman in the 10th, and they seized the decrease in difficulty. Andrew Benintendi's deep fly to right only went to the warning track, but it served the purpose of advancing Jake Amaya to third, and he scored when Luis Robert Jr. looped a fastball off the plate into right field for a go-ahead single.
Edgar Quero followed by seeing a big hole on the left side of the infield and bouncing a first-pitch fastball through it, which put runners on the corners with one out for Vaughn. Vaughn swung over a slider, took a strange pitchout for a ball, and then pounded a changeup into the ground toward third, where Max Schuemann started a 6-4-3 double play to limit the damage and set the stage for Urías' heroics.
If this game could've been settled by judges after nine, the White Sox would've won the decision. They out-chanced the Athletics with hits and walks while Davis Martin followed Jonathan Cannon's lead by taking what the opener left him and running with it. Alas, they were still stuck on Joshua Palacios' game-starting solo shot through nine innings as they squandered a few chances.
"We are not going to roll over," Martin said. "Our offense is going to play nine full innings. Our pitching staff is going to grind it out, good bad or indifferent. It’s putting everything together. Right now we need to get these kinks out."
In the third, Miguel Vargas went from first to third when Osvaldo Bido's pickoff attempt bounced into foul territory along the right field line, but Benintendi popped out, and while Robert extended the inning with a walk, Quero could only fly out to left field.
Two innings later, Vaughn singled with one out, then advanced to third when Matt Thaiss greeted lefty reliever T.J. McFarland with a double off the right field wall. Lenyn Sosa had a chance to seize the matchup advantage, but he rolled over a sinker to the left side. Vaughn got caught in a contact play between third and home, and while he tried to extend the rundown, Thaiss almost took off too late to third. He was called safe on his slide into the base after Vaughn was tagged out, and a replay wasn't definitive enough to overturn it, sparing the White Sox an embarrassing 6-2-5-6 double play. Brooks Baldwin could not take advantage of the second life, grounding out to end the inning.
Three consecutive Sox reached to start the sixth, but it amounted to no runs because Vargas was thrown out trying to go from first to third on Palacios' single to left. Palacios advanced to second on the throw to lessen the damage from the TOOTBLAN, and Benintendi backfilled first with an HBP. The Sox had two more chances to convert a runner in scoring position, but Robert grounded into a 6-4 fielder's choice, and Quero struck out.
"Good, aggressive play, good to try and get there," Venable said of Vargas' out on the bases. "Guy made a good play. At the same time, ball is in front of you, he decided to be aggressive and it didn’t work out."
The A's had comparatively fewer chances, and had Benintendi not broken in on a Brent Rooker broken-bat fly that went over his head for an RBI double off Eisert in the first, the White Sox might've been looking at a shutout. They stamped out threats quickly, getting traditional double plays in the sixth innings, and a SHOTHO to quash a burgeoning rally in the fourth.
"Thaiss did a great job of making sure we were going in and out," Martin said. "Changeup is my favorite pitch, slider is another great pitch. Everybody is going to try to zone me down. Thaiss did a really good job of making sure we were popping guys inside, creating space to go away. That was kind of the blueprint."
Martin ended up throwing six scoreless innings on 73 pitches after Eisert's opening act, and Cam Booser and Steven Wilson contributed scoreless innings to get the game to extras.
Bullet points:
*The White Sox finished 1-for-10 with runners in scoring position, stranding 10, The A's were 1-for-7 and stranded four, but their "1" scored two.
*The game only took 2 hours and 26 minutes despite the 10th inning.
*Based on postgame chatter, it would not surprise to see an opener used for the fourth-straight game on Tuesday.
