White Sox 4, Royals 3: José Abreu walks off after daring dash

Now that’s what I’m talking about.

No, seriously, that’s what I was talking about back when Tony La Russa’s ignorance of extra-inning rules led him to use Liam Hendriks as a runner on second. If La Russa knew that he was allowed to not use his pitcher as a runner, he could’ve used José Abreu instead, and that’s a way bigger advantage than sheer foot speed suggests.

Now, that’s all there for the picking, even if La Russa had to have Hendriks on second. But as Fegan so helpfully pointed out, La Russa could’ve chosen Abreu. Abreu isn’t a typical baserunning threat, but he can take the extra base when it’s presented, and thus he can’t be ignored.

Abreu saw one of those extra bases when others of his size and speed might have held up, and it won the White Sox this ballgame with an inspired blitz of home plate on a not-all-that-wild pitch.

The White Sox entered the ninth trailing 3-2, but tied it up when Tim Anderson led off with a ground-rule double, moved to third on Adam Eaton’s sac bunt and scored on Yoán Moncada’s single through the middle. Abreu then pushed Moncada into scoring position

Whit Merrifield denied Yermín Mercedes’ attempt to walk it off when he cut down Moncada with a prompt throw that was accurate enough for its purposes. Moncada blew through Joe McEwing’s stop sign and hoped that Merrifield’s throw might be way off line or otherwise escape Cam Gallagher, but Kansas City’s catcher caught it and sprawled across the baseline to tag Moncada’s attempt to evade him.

At least Abreu took third on the play, and those 90 feet begat the next. Yasmani Grandal took a curve low for ball one, and swung through a cutter for strike one. Davis then tried another curve, but Gallagher had set up on the outside corner, and Davis bounced it in front of the inside edge. Gallagher made a good attempt at blocking it, and got enough of it to where he never had to leave the dirt circle around the plate.

Abreu’s quick calculations told him his odds of scoring were better than Grandal’s odds of delivering a hit — 30 percent to 20 percent, maybe? — and broke for home.

Gallager’s mitt beat Abreu to the plate.

But Abreu’s front side dodged Gallagher’s mitt, and his hand slapped the plate before home plate umpire Edwin Moscoso saw Gallagher’s mitt contact Abreu’s body.

The play went to review, and it held up, because there wasn’t a convincing angle showing any glove flex or uniform ripple before Abreu’s hand hit home.

What’s funny is that the Sox usually wear their 1983 uniforms on Sundays, but perhaps because of Armed Forces Weekend requiring them to wear those camouflage caps with the standard Sox logo, the Sox chose to keep it consistent and went with the black tops instead.

If Abreu’s wearing the Winning Ugly jerseys, it’s probably a lot easier to see whether Gallagher’s glove touched Abreu’s shirt. As it stands, the call stood, and the White Sox salvaged the split with some walk-off #WILDPITCHOFFENSE.

The dramatic ending might’ve been necessary because this game refused to be tied. The White Sox twice led by one, including the final score, and they twice trailed by one.

The second felt like a classic stamp on a loss to KC. The Sox entered the seventh leading 2-1, but Codi Heuer gave up a pair of solid singles, followed by a sac bunt that moved both runners into scoring position. Tony La Russa called for Aaron Bummer to get the strikeout or groundout, and he did his job by getting Merrifield to hit a weak bouncer to a drawn-in infield. Abreu fielded it and would’ve had time to cut down Michael A. Taylor at the plate, but he couldn’t find the handle on it in time, nor could he get the out at first because Bummer didn’t cover (he ducked to get out of the way of a potential throw home). That tied the game, and a Carlos Santana fly to right almost left the yard for another wind-swept homer, but Eaton limited the damage to a sac fly with a leaping catch at the wall.

The Sox had held that lead because Eaton cleared the right-field wall himself against Brady Singer, who largely kept the Sox in check into the seventh inning. He only slipped up in the fifth, when Anderson kept the inning alive with a two-out single. He stole second easily on the combination of Singer and Gallagher, and then danced off second base in order to distract the battery.

It definitely worked, in the sense that he enticed Singer into a pickoff throw to a shortstop who wasn’t covering second. It also might’ve worked because Singer hung a 1-2 slider to Eaton, who cranked it a few rows deep into the right-center seats for a 2-1 lead.

The Sox didn’t have many other convincing swings off Singer otherwise, but fortunately Dylan Cease was just as game. Cease wasn’t overpowering like in previous starts, but he still limited the Royals to one unearned run on three singles and three walks over 5⅔ innings. The run was unearned because Santana, who reached on one-out walk and moved to second on an Andrew Benintendi single, moved to third on a slider that glanced off Grandal’s mitt for a passed ball, thus putting Santana in position to score when García stayed with Perez’s windswept fly in right center for a sac fly.

Cease settled in afterward, retiring the next nine. He didn’t face another real jam until the sixth, when he gave up a single to Benintendi and then threw wildly on an pickoff attempt to put Benintendi on second with nobody out. He got Perez to pop out, then survived a crushed drive by Jorge Soler that died on the left center warning track as the latest evidence that balls at Guaranteed Rate Field aren’t carrying this year. Heuer then came in and got a groundout to strand Benintendi at third.

Bullet points:

*Bummer successfully negated a pinch-runner move by picking off Jarrod Dyson.

*Anderson went 3-for-5 with a double from the leadoff spot, while Eaton reached base three times to stop the problems at No. 2.

*Mike Matheny did not agree with the call.

Record: 24-15 | Box score | Statcast

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