For five innings of one-hit ball, Guardians starter Gavin Williams backing up 100 mph heat with knee-buckling curveballs looked like the sort of neat trick that would dominate the night. And in the era where Ozzie Guillén managed, maybe it would have, at least for another out or so.
Through 5 2/3 innings, the only mark against Williams was Munetaka Murakami getting the barrel around just in time on a 100 mph sinker to dink it off the left field foul pole for a solo shot. But the real point against him is that after following up a soft Miguel Vargas single by striking out Colson Montgomery for the third time, Williams was at 102 pitches.
So on came Colin Holderman, who eschewed nominative determinism at a personally inconvenient time. He plunked both Andrew Benintendi and Braden Montgomery in the foot with wayward breaking balls to load the bases, then found himself on the wrong side of Tristan Peters' second extra-base hit since the All-Star break when he doubled up on outer-half sinkers. After a year full of aggressive sends with two outs, Justin Jirschele erred on the side of caution with Montgomery on the time that Brayan Rocchio wound up dropping the throw from the outfield. But Chase Meidroth redeemed it all by poking a 1-2 heater well off the plate for a two-run bloop single to make it a sixth inning five-spot as a packed house roared in approval.
"I faced him before in Cleveland," Peters said of Holderman. "He threw me a fastball away and I took it the other way. The same approach. I expected him to be running two seamers off the plate."
Those two extra tallies came in handy as the Sox weathered a threat levied the following inning by one of the three teams in MLB averaging less than four runs scored per game. Jordan Hicks was chased by an Angel Genao solo shot, a Steven Kwan single and a Jo Adell double to put the tying runs in scoring position with one out. Sean Newcomb came on and froze Chase DeLauter with a front door slurve, but Angel Martínez squared up an 0-2 heater that wasn't high enough to avoid his barrel, but produced a drive to center that wasn't high enough to elude Peters racing it down at the warning track.
"Needed that one," said Will Venable. "I don’t think there’s two ways about it. It was a great game, especially a comeback there against Gavin Williams, who just continues to be really hard to score on. The guys kept battling."
Colson Montgomery avoiding the collar with a leadoff single in the eighth led to an insurance run, and almost led to Grant Taylor getting to sit out the ninth entirely. Pinch-runner Luisangel Acuña both nabbed second and scooted to third when Patrick Bailey's throw careened into center, setting him up to score as Braden Montgomery singled through a drawn-in infield. After Peters became the fourth hitter plunked on the night, Meidroth briefly looked to have broken things open with a bunt when Matt Festa's throw hit him in the back, but he was ruled out for running inside the baseline.
Maybe Anthony Kay is what the White Sox envisioned when they hoped Noah Schultz's left-handedness would grant him more control over the Guardians lineup. It doesn't seem like there are that many Kwan multi-strikeout games against the White Sox on record, but Kay's sweeper enabled one, as well as a scoreless tie through five innings.
"Any game against these guys is going to be high-leverage, just good baseball played," Kay said. "With [Williams] on the mound, it adds a little bit more to it."
In three starts against Cleveland on the year, the only effective tools against Kay have been his predilection to hit right-handed hitters in the toe, the rain delay that shortened his outing in Cleveland to four innings, and Rhy Hoskins. The rare Guardians right-handed bat of consequence led off the second with an eight-pitch walk, and scooted to third on a one-out Travis Bazzana single. But Hoskins' effort to call a hasty retreat to third on an Austin Hedges squeeze attempt was deemed to have not beaten Vargas' tag upon replay review, clearing a base for Kay to re-load the bags by hitting his league-leading 21st batter of the year, before whiffing Kwan to escape the threat.
It's the sixth that found Hoskins more in his element. After Martínez's second excuse-me swing hit of the night dribbled past a shifted Murakami up the first base line, Hoskins got a plate-splitting sweeper at the knees and launched it out to left for a go-ahead two-run shot, at a point in the game where the Sox still only had one hit. Kay's quality start eventually got the support it deserved, but he left the game with the sort of feelings that lead a man to caught on camera chewing a towel in the dugout.
Maybe that was just the emotionally safe position in which to watch games with stakes in August.
"It's obviously a very important series so I'm really glad that we got to win this one," Murakami said via interpreter. "We were in a bad losing streak right here, so it's good to reset and then come back today with a win."
*Bullet points:
*The start of the game was delayed 17 minutes for Ozzie Guillen's number retirement ceremony
*Genao's dinger on a hanging Hicks sweeper was his first career home run on a night where he reached base three times. Might as well learn his name now since you'll be muttering it in your dreams for the next--well, until he gets too expensive for Cleveland in arbitration.
*Colson Montgomery fouled a pitch off his left leg this time, and got a lengthy visit from trainer James Kruk before striking out on the next pitch in the second. He seemed fine physically, but also was pinch-run for after an eighth inning single.
*38,227 in paid attendance made for the eighth sellout on the season.
*The Sox have equaled their 2025 win total.
*Some part of me was happy that upnorthsox got to experience a traditional Grant Taylor single-inning save.
