Going into the 11th inning, it didn't seem like Yoan Moncada's night. He strolled to the plate wearing a golden sombrero, including three K's looking, but managed to take a 3-2 pitch in the dirt from Adam Kolarek to work a lead-off walk.
Maybe all he needed was to reach the basepaths in order to play hero.
Jose Abreu followed with a ground ball that snuck through the right side of the infield and dribbled to a stop in front of rightfielder Mike Brosseau, who was playing deep and is also not a rightfielder (he had previously played 42 professional innings in the outfield, but was forced to enter after Kevin Kiermaier left with an injury). Moncada was running on the pitch and, after briefly slowing to read the ball at second, turned on the jets to score the winning run all the way from first.
The Sox found themselves in extras thanks mostly to Lucas Giolito and James McCann. Giolito threw 6 2/3 innings of one run ball, working mostly fastball-change up to reclaim his ace form after a few wobbly outings. Unfortunately Ryan Yarbrough was better, throwing four perfect innings until McCann broke things up with a single leading off the 4th.
Yarbrough ended up shutting the Sox out for six innings, while Diego Castillo and Oliver Drake (owner of one of the world's more awesome windups) did likewise in the 7th and 8th. And after Avisail Garcia clobbered a hanging change from Giolito for the afternoon's sole run to that point, it seemed like that would be good enough for a win.
Luckily, after enjoying his experience getting a hit in the 4th, McCann decided that hitting another one -- but farther this time -- would be fun, and took Emilio Pagan deep with two outs in the 9th to send it to extras and set the stage for Moncada's mad dash.
Bullets Points:
- The bullpen gets credit for keeping the Sox in position to win, as Aaron Bummer, Evan Marshall, Jace Fry, and Alex Colome combined for 4 1/3 scoreless innings.
- Before the game, Kelvin Herrera was placed on the disabled list with a "bad pitching" I meannnnn "strained oblique." Jimmy Cordero replaced him on the active roster.
- Ryan Goins and Adam Engel collectively went 4 for 5, and are now a combined 8 for 16 with a triple, a homer, a stolen base and two walks over the last 4 days. Who needs Luis Robert?
