Apparently there was no way this game was going to feature a second run.
Good thing the White Sox scored first.
Andrew Benintendi's sixth-inning solo shot off Robbie Ray turned out to be enough, as seven shutout innings from Adrian Houser and a two-inning, minimum-facing save from Grant Taylor allowed the White Sox to set up a Sunday rubber match. In the process, they also bailed out Michael A. Taylor, whose inability to touch home plate for what would've been an insurance run in the seventh inning didn't come back to bite them.
Taylor twice failed to score by the slightest of margins. First, he missed an opposite-field solo shot by an inch with one out in the seventh, as the ball hit off the yellow padding and back into play, forcing Taylor to settle for a double. Josh Rojas followed with a lefty-lefty single off Erik Miller, but when Taylor took a wide path around Andrew Knizner to dive into home, his hand never touched home plate, instead skidding around the back point. Home plate umpire Marvin Hudson didn't give a signal until Knizner applied the tag, and although Will Venable held out an arm to challenge, the replay from above the plate showed no point.
"It was a clean play," Venable said. "One of those tough ones where as a runner, you don’t really have much of a choice there with a catcher who is moving up the line to receive the throw."
The mistake forced (Grant) Taylor to work with the slimmest of margins for a two-inning save, but he had no problems doing so. He retired the bottom of the San Francisco order with three routine outs, and then saved his better location for the top of the order in the ninth, striking out Rafael Devers and Dominic Smith around a slick pick from Chase Meidroth on Heliot Ramos' groundout. Taylor is now tied for the team lead in saves with two.
"That was nasty," said Josh Rojas of Taylor. "He throws fuel."
"I think it just adds a little bit more adrenaline for sure, like you're a little bit more amped up because one swing could blow the save for you, blow the save for your team," Taylor said of the game situation. "It's a lot of fun being out there."
In the process, he preserved a richly deserved win for Houser, who lowered his ERA to 1.90 with seven shutout innings. He attacked the Giants in a straightforward manner, because they didn't really give him a reason to overthink it. He allowed just four singles and a walk while striking out five, and needed just 88 pitches to do so, with 62 finding the zone.
"It's a really tough lineup," Houser said. "You can't really live in one area too long. You've got to keep the sequence mixed up. There's a few changeups that they went out and got late. But keeping it mixed up was the main goal, and overall, being ahead and being able to get first-pitch strikes and being able to work ahead, making them get on the defensive and hit our pitch, that was the main thing today."
He limited his trouble to the sixth inning, which appeared on track to unravel for the White Sox like it did the night before. They suffered the same combination of bad luck (a pair of soft singles, one of the broken-bat variety) and bad execution (a Houser balk that put those runners on second and third).
With one pitch, the Sox reversed the flow. Houser struck out Rafael Devers with a changeup, and then Rojas and Edgar Quero and teamed up for another pickoff at third, this time catching Brett Wisely by surprise. The Giants went from runners on second and third with nobody out to a runner on second with two outs, and a Heliot Ramos flyout to center ended the threat. The White Sox weren't the only teams kicking themselves over their baserunning, but that mistake proved far more costly.
"I know if I throw from my knees, the runner can't see me," Quero said of his quick throw. "I was talking to Josh before the game, and I was like, 'I want to try to do some back picks today.' And I saw him in that situation, and he picked me up and I threw the ball."
Bullet points:
*Benintendi tied Miguel Vargas for the team lead in homers with 10.
*The combination of Quero and Rojas previously teamed up for a back pick at third with Houser on the mound in Baltimore, and he's also picked off Nolan Gorman at third.
"I deked early on just to see if they would react and I got no reaction out of third base coach or the runner, so I figured they were going to try to be aggressive and score on contact," Rojas said. "Q, we always talk about it. He's looking at me every pitch, waiting for me to call it. I felt like it was a pretty good opportunity to call it and he responded right away and got him."
*Jonathan Cannon is officially Sunday's starter.
