Garrett Whitlock had struck out Eloy Jiménez and Yasmani Grandal before getting ahead of Leury García 0-2, so you can't necessarily blame him for thinking he'd gotten the Red Sox to the 10th inning after the Boston offense tied it off Craig Kimbrel in the top of the ninth.
But as we'd discussed a few days ago, García is in the middle of a weird little run where he routinely makes something out of nothing:
But he does look like a different sort of hitter, and what I’d suggest is that a lot of his improvement is in the gray area. For instance, American League hitters are batting .163/.197/.260 after falling behind 0-2. Garciá is batting .224/.263/.250 when his back is against the wall. He’s not quite Nick Madrigal, but he’s the closest thing after Luis Robert, who is batting .275/.302/.490 in such situations.
Likewise García has drawn 21 walks against relief pitchers this year, third behind Yoán Moncada and Yasmani Grandal. He seems to come up with productive plate appearances where you don’t think they should exist.
And sure enough, Whitlock gave García the opportunity to create. His 0-2 fastball split the plate, and García responded with fly ball that bisected the outfield wall by doinking off the batter's eye 430 feet away for a walk-off homer.
With Tim Anderson set to return from injury after Monday's off day, it makes sense that García would want to end his time at shortstop with a grand finale, at least if my "García-as-tribute-band" theory has any merit. In the process, he also extracted Craig Kimbrel -- and maybe Luis Robert and Tony La Russa -- from most of the postgame heat regarding the the top of the frame.
Kimbrel was pitching for a third straight day after going 1-for-2 in eighth innings over the first two games of this series, and Robert complicated the task at hand by misplaying Enrique Hernández's hard-hit liner to center for a leadoff double. Kimbrel recovered briefly by striking out Kyle Schwarber, but the filled the other two bases with walks, and most pitches nowhere close.
I suppose the consequences could've been worse. Alex Verdugo tied the game with a sac fly, but Kimbrel struck out Bobby Dalbec to limit the damage to one run. There weren't any easy calls, what with Liam Hendriks, Ryan Tepera and Aaron Bummer all facing a third straight day of work, and Jose Ruiz already ending the seventh and eighth innings. Ruiz had pitched well enough to start the ninth, but he also has a rich history of poor high-leverage appearances, and he doesn't have much experience getting up for a third time.
All's well that ends well, especially since this game also started well. Lance Lynn dominated over five innings in his return to from the injured list for knee inflammation, allowing just two singles while striking out nine. Moreover, he threw just 70 pitches, so the hook seemed precautionary rather than born out of inefficiency or overexertion otherwise. He generated 13 whiffs and 12 more called strikes on 70 pitches, and he kept the average exit velocity under 90 mph on all his pitches. The velocity was fine, the spin rate was there. Now we just have to wait for a positive recovery period, which an off day on Monday can assist.
The only thing that was lacking was the White Sox offense, which only totaled one run over the first eight innings against Nick Pivetta and Co., and needed help from the Boston defense to do so. One Hernández helped another, as Enrique rushed the throw right right field on César's ordinary ground ball into the shift, resulting in a leadoff error. Seby Zavala bunted the runner to second, and Robert knocked him in with a single through the left side for an unearned run.
As inelegant as it was, the White Sox won two out of three against a quality opponent, with the three games of the series averaging 35,000-plus fans, and all three scores decided by one run. They're close to the time of year where surviving and advancing is the name of the game, and they got good practice this weekend.
Bullet points:
*Robert also started a double play with a fine throw from the center field warning track to get Jose Iglesias, who bounced into second with an ugly dive into the base while attempting to tag up.
*Cleveland got swept by Milwaukee, so the White Sox increased their AL Central lead to a season-high 12 games while reducing the magic number to nine.
Record: 82-61 | Box score | Statcast
(Photo by Matt Marton/USA TODAY Sports)
