The White Sox are undefeated when Tim Anderson scores four runs in a game.
It's only happened twice, and both games required late rallies for the White Sox to pull it off, but still. With his bat and legs, Anderson propelled the White Sox to a victory in their first 11-inning game since 2019.
His heroics mean we can start with what went right, and Anderson was the rightest. He smacked a game-tying solo shot in the ninth inning after an agonizing eighth, and when the game came back to him in the 11th, he factored into the game's only extra-inning runs. First he shot a single through the right side to score Manfred Man Zack Collins. Then he took second when the late and wide throw home wasn't cut. He moved to third on a passed ball, and though Luis Robert couldn't get him home, José Abreu hit a chopper to third high enough for Anderson to score without a throw.
(Abreu made Anderson work harder in the fifth, as Anderson needed every inch of his extension to dive successfully around Mike Zunino's swipe tag on a contact play.)
Tony La Russa could've stuck with Liam Hendriks, who summoned beast mode to strand the potential winning run in the bottom of the 10th after the Sox went scoreless in their half. His first pitch resulted in a productive groundout that moved a runner to third, but he struck out Wander Franco, then teased a popout from Nelson Cruz to get the game to the 11th. Those battles only required eight pitches, but perhaps La Russa didn't think Hendriks could weather a second adrenaline spike.
Fortunately, Ryan Tepera got the job done in Hendriks' stead. His worst pitch of the inning -- a 3-2 slider to Brett Phillips -- resulted in a flyout just short of the warning track to open his night, but while Cruz took third on the play, Tepera stranded him with a couple of strikeouts, making Anderson's baserunning exploits more appreciated than necessary.
Anderson finished the game 3-for-6 with two RBIs and four runs scored (a fourth hit was taken away from him when an infield single was correctly revised to an error by Brandon Lowe behind second base). He's the reason why we're waiting until now to talk about the eighth.
There's a lot to second-guess, and La Russa did some of it after the game. He opened the inning with a 4-2 lead and Craig Kimbrel on the mound, but Kimbrel found immediate trouble by throwing his first seven pitches out of the zone. He got a lineout from Kevin Kiermaier before a second walk, but Manuel Margot advanced from first to third on a stolen base and wild pitch during an at-bat that ultimately ended with a Mike Zunino strikeout.
With the tying run still at the plate, La Russa pulled Kimbrel for Aaron Bummer to face the lefty Lowe. Kevin Cash countered with Randy Arozarena, who drew his own four-pitch walk to put runners on the corners. That's when Wander Franco hit one of those classic too-high choppers that backfire on Bummer to make it a 4-3 game. Bummer then walked Nelson Cruz to load the bases even though first base wasn't open, and Austin Meadows upset the lefty-lefty strategy by lining the first pitch to center for a two-run single.
La Russa kicked himself during his postgame Zoom call for not trusting Kimbrel's track record. He might also kick himself for intentionally walking the go-ahead run into scoring position, especially with Bummer having the tendency to compound bad breaks with mistakes.
Fortunately, Anderson caused high-leverage headaches for the other dugout when he endured a 1-2 count against JT Chargois to hammer a full-count slider over the center-field wall for a game-tying homer, putting the redemption story in motion. Garrett Crochet survived his own leadoff walk in the bottom of the ninth, and the rest is victory.
Prior to the foundering of the bullpens, this looked like a well-earned victory for Lucas Giolito, who held the Rays to two runs on three hits over seven innings, striking out eight. He should have received more offensive support, but four runs looked like plenty with the way he was throwing. The Rays made him pay on a couple of his limited mistakes. Ji-Man Choi took a center-cut, thigh-high fastball out to left center to tie the game at 1 in the third, and Margot sliced a drive past Eloy Jiménez on a hanging slider with one out in the fifth. Jiménez took a bad angle to turn two bases into three, and Margot came home on a sac fly.
Otherwise, Giolito pitched beautifully, with his slider laying down the law before his changeup arrived. He threw just 90 pitches over seven innings, but induced a whopping 24 whiffs, distributed relatively evenly among his three main pitches (10 fastballs, eight sliders, six changeups).
Michael Wacha wasn't nearly as sharp, but the Sox offense still needed time to crack him. The Sox foreshadowed an early crooked number when Anderson reached on the error to start the game and scored on Luis Robert's double to right center, but Abreu and Jiménez struck out, and Yoán Moncada flied out to keep the Sox limited to one.
The second run didn't come until the fifth despite threats in between. Joe McEwing sent Andrew Vaughn into an out at home plate on Seby Zavala's one-out single in the second inning, when a stop sign would have loaded the bases for Anderson. It wasn't a bad send in terms of McEwing's clock, because it was a bang-bang play at home. But Vaughn wasn't expecting the green light, and took an angle better suited for holding up than charging home, and the extra feet traveled cost him.
The Sox broke it open -- kinda -- in the fifth. Anderson reached on an infield single, moved to second on a Zunino passed ball, took third on Robert's groundout to the right side, then scored on the contact play. Yoán Moncada made the other two runs a lot easier by crushing a 1-1 changeup out to center for his 11th homer and a 4-1 lead.
The Sox outhit the Rays 11-5, but they both only mustered two hits with runners in scoring position. The Rays were 2-for-10, while the White Sox were 2-for-18. A win's a win, and the magic number is 30.
Bullet points:
*Brian Goodwin went 0-for-5 with four strikeouts, including an 11-pitch at-bat in the 10th where his bid for a two-run homer went foul by only a couple feet.
*Vaughn might've had the worse game, going 1-for-5 with six stranded along with the out at the plate. He's now 2-for-46 on the season with runners in scoring position and two outs. Anderson covered for mostly unremarkable games down the line.
*Hendriks picked up his eighth win of the season, which is not the stat you want to see from a closer unless he's pitching the 10th inning on the road.
