It took three hours for baseball to begin at Rate Field Monday night due to weather, and a little less than two hours after that, the White Sox's bats showed up as well.
Up until that point, Sox hitters pounded a series' worth of Jack Kochanowicz sinkers into the dirt though the Angels' starter's first six innings, with only Tristan Peters lining a single, going first-to-third on a seeing-eye Edgar Quero grounder and scoring on a fielder's choice in the fifth soiling his line. Opening the seventh at 86 pitches and protecting a 5-1 lead, Kochanowicz had generated 11 outs on the ground, and should have had 12. But shortstop Zach Neto whiffed entirely on a Sam Antonacci roller to lead off the seventh, and that's when all hell broke loose (complimentary).
The long-prophesied bunting for a hit with the infield back finally came to fruition with Chase Meidroth dropping a perfect one down the third base line. At that point, Angels manager Kurt Suzuki went to sidearming righty Nick Sandlin out of the bullpen over the also-warming Drew Pomeranz, to face three straight lefties. His choice would ultimately be validated, but not in a way he'd appreciate.
Peters ripped a thigh-high splitter for an RBI single, before plunking Quero with a slider to reload the bases for Andrew Benintendi. While he's not having a good start, Benintendi ripped his second huge hit of the past week; a two-run double down the right field line to chase Sandlin with zero outs recorded. Pomeranz can be comforted that Munetaka Murakami's high fly ball to right had no business leaving the park (95.8 mph, 48 degree launch angle) for a three-run go-ahead blast, or that he's only allowed two homers to left-handed hitters since 2019. But since they've both come in the last two days, it's doubtful he will, especially since Miguel Vargas made it back-to-back jacks with a conventional no-doubter to left. All told, the Sox plated seven in the seventh, all before recording an out.
Jordan Hicks' continued addiction to unhelpful soft contact produced a mini-jam with a pair of one-out singles in the eighth, prompting Will Venable to press the button for the first multi-inning Grant Taylor save of the year, only for more chaos to ensue. Taylor induced a soft liner from old friend Yoán Moncada before wiping out Neto with a full counter breaker to clear the decks in the eighth, and good that he did given what his defense had in store for him in the ninth. Colson Montgomery sailed a throw on a routine grounder from Trout to lead off the frame, before a deep, but playable fly from Vaughn Grissom dropped between Antonacci and Peters in left-center.
As it happens, five outs in an inning is a lot to ask even from your best reliever, and a Jo Adell line-drive single before a two-out, two-strike bloop double from Nolan Schanuel plated a pair before Venable turned to Bryan Hudson for a left-on-left battle with Adam Frazier. It ended with a routine groundout to Meidroth, the only normal play of the game.
It seemed like Anthony Kay resolved to get the cutter and sinker involved more to take pressure off his four-seamer. But spending a lot of time focusing on it might give the impression that it was successful, rather than fortunate to limit the damage to four across in four innings.
The Angels had eight hard-hit balls (95+ mph exit velocity) off Kay, and three of them came in the first, with Mike Trout banging an ankle-high sweeper for a double to the gap and eventually scoring on a Jorge Soler sacrifice fly. The guy who generated stratospheric ground-ball rates in Japan continues to struggle to induce them stateside, exemplified by No. 9 hitter Bryce Teodosio drilling a middle-middle sinker for an RBI double in the second. And when Kay did get topped contact, stuff like Vargas whiffing on a hard Neto chopper happened, putting the Angels up 3-0 through two.
With two strikeouts and walks apiece, Kay's K-BB ratio remains slightly above water (15-14) for the season. But he also plunked two guys, which both ensured that he didn't have a 1-2-3 inning on the night, and lent the sense that he was always in trouble. Peters racing to haul in a Grissom drive to the right-center gap kept the Angels to a single run in the fourth after a leadoff walk and two singles had loaded the bases, and as it turned out, that was only the beginning of his heroics.
Osvaldo Bido pitched three innings of relief after Kay with only a Jorge Soler solo shot against him, in an effort that seemed meaningless but wound up being critical. For that, Bido got the win.
Bullet points:
*Rain delayed the start of this game for three hours. The Angels took the lead after six minutes. There were 821 dogs in attendance, per the White Sox.
*Meidroth foiled an Angels double steal attempt in the second by stepping up and easily throwing out Bryce Teodosio at home. They had runners at the corners with one out, Trout at the plate, and making hard contact with everything Kay threw, so maybe they were banking on the element of surprise. Only the Sox seemed more grateful than surprised. Meidroth also started a slick double play to end the fifth, and dropped a bunt single in the seven-run seventh.
*Four runs represents the largest deficit the White Sox have erased in a comeback win since 2023.
