The last time Pete Crow-Armstrong faced the White Sox, it was a low point of his season. He went hitless at the plate while batting eighth, but what happened in the field was more noteworthy, as he got a face full of chain link fence after failing to run down a Miguel Vargas double, then cursed at a woman who heckled him. The White Sox ended up winning 9-8 on an Edgar Quero walk-off homer, and Crow-Armstrong eventually issued an apology after resisting on his initial attempt.
Three months to the date of Quero's heroics, Crow-Armstrong supplied his own, opening the 10th inning by taking Hagen Smith out to right field for a walk-off two-run homer that gave the Cubs a win that should've come to them far more easily.
The North Siders outhit the White Sox 14-4, and the White Sox out-errored the Cubs 2-0, yet the Cubs had to claw their way back into it against Will Venable's second-string high-leverage crew. The game appeared to slip away from them over the course of a full inning, as Alex Bregman got faked out by a Jake Rogers no-throw to second and got picked off at third to end the bottom of the seventh, and then Andrew Benintendi ambushed a high first-pitch fastball from Ryan Zeferjahn and dropped it into the basket in right to put the White Sox ahead 5-4 in the eighth.
The White Sox tried to carry the lead across the finish line without touching their usual late-inning options after a high-stress series in Detroit, and it nearly worked. Tyler Schweitzer took over for Luis Castillo with two outs in the fifth and weathered pressure to get the next five outs without a run. Trevor Richards took over with one out and a runner on second in the seventh and stranded him, then notched the first two outs of the eighth, with help from Rogers.
Richards nearly got through the eighth by himself, but Crow-Armstrong's two-out double prompted Venable to call for Hicks to face Seiya Suzuki, and Hicks tied him up with 102 up and in to get the game to the ninth.
But while Hicks survived a deep fly ball by Michael Busch to open the ninth, the other two outs took a lot more work. He walked Bregman and Ian Happ as he struggled to locate non-fastballs for strikes, or even anything that looked competitive. That brought Nico Hoerner to the plate, and while Hicks started him with 101 in off the plate, Hoerner wasn't looking for anything else, and was able to muscle a single to center to tie the game at 5.
Hicks was able to get out of the inning with no further damage with an intentional walk, a strikeout of Miguel Amaya and a 5-unassisted from Carson Kelly, but the White Sox couldn't solve Jacob Webb's changeup in the top of the 10th. Munetaka Murakami walked to start the inning, and Braden Montgomery was able to resist them enough to draw a two-out walk himself, but Miguel Vargas and Benintendi struck out on changeups in between, and Tristan Peters rolled over one to leave them loaded. That left the Cubs only having to score one run in the bottom of the inning; Crow-Amstrong made it two. He finished the night 4-for-5 from the leadoff spot, and also reached base with a walk.
Had Hicks been able to hold the lead, the story of the night would've been the White Sox's two-headed DH. Before Benintendi delivered the go-ahead homer in the eighth, Randal Grichuk did the same thing with a three-run homer in the fourth. He came to the plate after a Murakami walk and a Vargas single and lined a splitter that wasn't quite low enough over the wall in center field to put the Sox in front 3-2. Randrew accounted for all five RBIs, but it's eighth-paragraph material in a loss.
Grichuk's blast was one of the few convincing hacks the Sox had against Imanaga, who used that splitter to get a whopping 15 whiffs on 19 swings, and finished with 10 strikeouts over six innings. He handily outpitched Castillo, whose evening was bookended by unfortunate events.
Castillo gave up homers to the first two batters he faced to fall behind 2-0, but he held the line there until his final pitches of the fifth inning. He had runners on first and third after Happ beat out a potential double-play ball for the second out, which brought Hoerner to the plate. Castillo got Hoerner to whiff on a slider, and then induced a chase on a breaking ball even further off the plate.
But Hoerner got the bat on it, and it a perfect swinging bunt up the third-base line. Miguel Vargas probably should've let it go and hoped for a lucky kick into foul territory. His second-best choice was eating the ball and allowing the tying run to score, but leaving runners on first and second for whoever might be pitching next.
But he chose Door No. 3, which was to try a hopeless throw. He fired it wide and into foul territory down the right field line, which allowed one run to score. The tarp then softened the carom, and Braden Montgomery rushed his throw home and sailed it well high and wide, allowing Happ to touch home plate without issue for a 4-3 lead.
In between was a battle, as Castillo didn't work a clean inning all night. Luck wasn't entirely on his side, and he overran a a Michael Conforto chopper up the line for an error to add some pitches to his tab in the fourth inning, so getting the game past the halfway point was kind of a victory, even if he ended up settling for the no-decision. The Sox sure could have used one more inning, though.
Bullet points:
*Sam Antonacci took an Imanaga sweeper off the elbow for his 23rd HBP of the season, which ties Carlos Quentin (2011) and Minnie Miñoso (1956) for the White Sox single-season record.
*Vargas made a nifty backhanded catch with his back to the infield near the brick sidewall in foul territory in the second inning.
*Chase Meidroth set the wrong kind of tone at the top of the order, going 0-for-5 with four strikeouts. Murakami walked three times behind him, so that's where the lineup started.
*Besides Crow-Armstrong, Hoerner also finished with four hits, so two different Cubs had as many hits as the entire White Sox team. Again, this should've been a much easier Cubs win.
*The White Sox compensated with eight walks and an HBP over 10 innings, but even then, they only had four at-bats with runners in scoring position, and three of them were in the 10th inning.
*Bryan Hudson will start tomorrow.
