It was Mike Vasil against the world, and Mike Vasil won.
With Will Venable using seven other relievers over the first 17 innings of the doubleheader, Vasil received the ball in the ninth with the idea that he'd be the last White Sox pitcher of the evening.
He endured mound-ruining downpours and escaped two bases-loaded jams around an ugly rally-killing double play int he bottom of the 10th, finally emerging as the pitcher of record when Mike Tauchman's excuse-me dribbler to the left side of the infield rolled under Kolby Allard's glove, allowing Colson Montgomery to make it home without a throw, bringing a long day of baseball to a crowd-pleasing end.
Ironically, a game that opened with the unveiling of Mark Buehrle's statue ended up being the longest White Sox game of the year. It tied with June 14's 11-inning loss to the Rangers at 3 hours and 40 minutes, but the pregame ceremony added a 20-minute delay to the start of it.
At least it wasn't delayed further as sporadic downpours moved in. Vasil had to pause in both extra innings to allow Roger Bossard to apply drying compound to the mound, which made them even longer than pitch counts -- 25 in the 10th, 13 more in the 11th -- already suggested. He issued a pair of two-out walks to create his own trouble in the former, but Brayan Rocchio's hot shot to the right side found Lenyn Sosa's glove to end the inning.
Unfortunately, he had to do it again. The White Sox set themselves to end it in 10 after Kyle Teel bunted over Miguel Vargas, but Steven Vogt intentionally walked Luis Robert Jr., who did not run during Montgomery's plate appearance, and thus was caught in no-man's land when Montgomery hit a grounder right at Angel Martínez. Robert couldn't run at Martínez, but he didn't have a lot of room to extend the rundown behind him, and ended up getting tagged out a half-beat before Martínez stepped on first for the rare 4-unassisted double play at first base.
Vasil returned to the mound with a Manfred Man at second, except he had to face the top of the order this time. He got Steven Kwan to ground out, which moved Rocchio to third. Vasil then walked Nolan Jones before plunking José Ramírez, which turned out to be effectively a successful intentional walk when Kyle Manzardo grounded into a 4-6-3 double play to keep Cleveland off the board.
This time, the White Sox offense got the job done ... with an assist from the Guardians defense for the second time in the late innings. With Montgomery starting the bottom of the 11th at second, Chase Meidroth came off the bench for Josh Rojas and delivered a sac bunt that Rojas failed at earlier in the game, and Michael A. Taylor was intentionally walked to set up a similar sort of double play with runners on the corners.
Tauchman then saw three pitches on the edge from Allard. He took a fastball on the outer edge for a strike, took another one for a ball, and then Allard came inside with a misplaced changeup. It served the purpose of confusing Tauchman, who half-swung a broken-bat tapper to the third base side of the mound.
Allard came off on a good line and set himself up to get Montgomery at home, especially since Montgomery was about to stop halfway, thinking his job shifted to forcing a rundown long enough for Taylor to replace him at third. But he broke home with enough intensity that Allard rushed his actions home, and he didn't come close to getting the glove down far enough to field the weak bouncer. Montgomery restarted toward home after the brief stutter-step and gave the Guardians no play, and some considerable regrets.
Whether in regulation or extras, the Guardians should've been able to sweep the doubleheader and extend their winning streak to five games, the kind of mid-month surge necessary to avoid selling at the deadline. They were able to tie the game at 3 on Jordan Leasure's watch in the sixth when Rocchio's slashed a double inside the left-field line with two outs. An inning later, they created a scoring opportunity against Grant Taylor with a soft single and a bunt single, and Martínez capitalized with a hot shot that glanced off Vargas' mitt and down the right field line to put Cleveland ahead 4-3.
But the Sox were able to knot it up in the bottom of the eighth thanks to the lone Cleveland error on the books. Kyle Teel led off with a walk, and two batters later, Montgomery hit a hard two-hopper to the right side. Daniel Schneeman threw his body at it and gloved it cleanly, but he had a little more time than he thought, and spiked the throw at Manzardo, who couldn't dig it out. Montgomery was credited with a single, but Teel advanced to third on the error, and scored on Rojas' sac fly to make it a 4-4 game.
The first half of the game was a lot more straightforward, to the point that it doesn't seem like it was part of the same evening. Lenyn Sosa homered in the first inning off Gavin Williams, and when Ramírez hammered a plate-splitting cutter over the right-field wall to put Cleveland ahead 2-1 in the top of the third, the White Sox loaded the bases with three walks, and while a Vargas sac fly was all they could, it made it a brand new ballgame after three nevertheless.
A second Sosa solo shot put the White Sox ahead 3-2 in the bottom of the fifth. Their attempt to score another go-ahead run in the bottom of the sixth suffered a swift death. Rojas failed to get the bunt down before striking out, and Austin Slater came off the bench to ground into a 6-4-3 double play.
Bullet points:
*Outside of the mistake to Ramírez, Cannon looked good, which the line reflects (5 IP, 3 H, 2 R, 2 ER, 3 BB, 5 K, 1 HR). He threw 51 of 87 pitches for strikes, so he's probably stretched out to be used like a regular starter after the break.
*The White Sox were 1-for-7 with runners in scoring position and stranded 12. The Guardians were 2-for-16 and stranded 14.
*Vasil improved to 4-3, which is tied for second in wins behind Adrian Houser. He lowered his ERA to 2.47.
*The attendance for Buehrle's statue unveiling was a lively 25,084, at least before the rains dwindled the ranks.
*During the sixth inning, CHSN switched to Chuck Garfien, Ozzie Guillen and A.J. Pierzynski talking over the action, and didn't go to commercial during a pitching change. They were sharing stories about Buehrle and the 2005 team, ribbing each other, and while they only paid cursory attention to what became Leasure's fourth blown save of the season, they could've gone on for a couple more innings as far as I'm concerned.
*The White Sox are now 8-21 in one-run games after starting the season 4-20. They're 3-4 in extras.
