There was to be no second-guessing in the late innings tonight, at least when it came to which Cubs needed to be avoided.
When Pete Crow-Armstrong came to the plate with the winning run on second and first base open for the second straight evening, Will Venable didn't hesitate to intentionally walk him. Perhaps it would've been different if Trevor Richards were lefty, but Richards faced Seiya Suzuki with his right arm and sawed him off into a pop foul in front of the first-base dugout, which Munetaka Murakami picked off the turf with a sliding catch for the second out.
But Richards still had to face Alex Bregman.
Grant Taylor faced similar circumstances in the seventh inning, when he entered to clean up Huascar Brazobán's pair of walks to start the inning. With the same part of the order in play, Taylor struck out Crow-Armstrong with a high fastball, then got Suzuki to chase a slider for strike three. Taylor then faced Bregman, got ahead 0-2, then missed with his first putaway slider down. His second attempt dangled over the middle of the strike zone, and Bregman lined it to left for a single that tied the game at 3.
In the ninth, Richards didn't have time to set up the count. He tried to get ahead with a first-pitch fastball up and away, but Bregman was ready for it and lined it right back up the middle for the Cubs' second walk-off victory in as many nights.
Perhaps Richards wouldn't have been on the mound -- or perhaps not for a second inning -- had the tarps not come out before the bottom of the eighth in anticipation of rain that caused a one-hour, 28-minute delay, which ruled out a second inning from Taylor. Or perhaps you can trace it back to Brazobán, who missed with eight of nine pitches to start the seventh and required Taylor to enter an inning earlier than Venable might have preferred.
Brazobán's lapse disrupted a godsend of a bulk effort from Erick Fedde, who threw 4⅔ scoreless innings and overwrote Bryan Hudson's busted attempt at opening. Fedde was greeted by two singles and had to strand the bases loaded to get out of the second inning, but settled down to retire the next 11 batters on a total of 34 pitches to get the game into the sixth.
Meanwhile, the White Sox offense overcame a pair of first-inning solo shots to take a 3-2 lead for the second consecutive night. In the second, Chase Meidroth pulled a single through the left side with two outs, and the White Sox wouldn't let Kevin Gausman close the door. Showing heightened awareness of splitters after flailing helplessly against so many of Shota Imanaga's the night before, Tristan Peters muscled a flared single to left, and Drew Romo shot his own opposite-field single the same way to score Meidroth to make it a 2-1 game.
The White Sox then took a much more direct route to their single tally in the third inning, as Murakami bazooka'd a full-count fastball down and away off the video board behind the left field bleachers for a leadoff solo shot. It seemed like it traveled farther than 406 feet, but with a 39-degree launch angle, perhaps a lot of the distance the 111.1 mph exit velocity generated traveled upward.
The Sox then made it three consecutive run-scoring innings in the fourth when Colson Montgomery led off with a double, and Peters doubled him home two batters later.
Miguel Vargas ended up chasing Gausman from the game with a single off the plate, although it stemmed more from an issue with Gausman's left hand. That's when the Cubs bullpen entered the fray, and when Andrew Benintendi immediately grounded into a double play, that more or less foreshadowed the offensive success the rest of the night. They weren't completely shut down, but they were limited to one single a frame.
The Sox had their best shot in the sixth inning when Colson Montgomery singled and took second when Crow-Armstrong overran it, but Meidroth grounded out and Peters flied out to strand him. Sam Antonacci singled with one out in the eighth and stole second on a Murakami strike three, but Vargas' bid for a two-run shot died on the right field warning track. Montgomery then came through with his third hit of the night with two outs in the eighth, and Antonacci drew a two-walk walk in the ninth, but both went nowhere.
The White Sox will now have to navigate another uncertain starting pitching situation Wednesday afternoon to avoid a sweep. Sean Newcomb, who was warming for a save situation, will open the finale. The hope is that Taylor will be available on consecutive days, as he threw just 17 pitches over his inning of work.
Bullet points:
*Crow-Armstrong started the bottom of the first with a homer for the second straight night, and Hudson gave up a solo shot to Michael Busch as well. Both are lefties, which provided a rebuttal against Venable's preference for handedness in the 10th inning on Monday.
*Here's an example of why blown saves are misleading stat: Taylor was charged with one for allowing Brazobán's runner to score in the seventh inning, even though Taylor wouldn't have been on the mound for the ninth to see a save situation all the way through.
*At least Taylor was spared worse, as Meidroth made an incredible diving stop on a Michael Busch grounder to keep the go-ahead run off the board in the seventh. The Sox played far sounder baseball tonight in comparison to Monday, but the result was the same.
