The White Sox and Cubs traded a pair of homers.
The White Sox and Cubs swapped busted late-inning scoring opportunities.
What the White Sox had and the Cubs lacked: a pair of soft, shift-thwarting RBI singles. Gavin Sheets dinked a grounder through the vacated left side to tie the game at 3 in the fourth inning, and AJ Pollock's wounded duck dropped just out of the reach of Nick Madrigal in shallow right field to put the White Sox ahead in the sixth.
Nails relief work by Matt Foster preserved the lead, and Liam Hendriks recorded his third save in as many days to secure the sweep.
While Pollock stands as a hero, he was nearly a goat. In the top of the eighth, the White Sox had the bases loaded with one out after singles by Adam Engel and Luis Robert, and an intentional walk to Yasmani Grandal after a wild pitch opened first base. Pollock locked into a 2-2 battle with Mychal Givens, pulling a hanging changeup foul before pulling a grounder to third base for an easy 5-4-3 double play.
The Cubs then greeted Aaron Bummer in the bottom of the eighth with a pair of singles that put runners on the corners. (Adam Engel saved a run by cutting off Patrick Wisdom's line drive to the gap, so Wisdom only advanced to third). Bummer had to face a third batter, and after Yan Gomes hit a liner right at Tim Anderson, Tony La Russa wasted no time in going for Foster.
Foster proved some high-leverage mettle for the second time in as many games. He attacked Seiya Suzuki with high fastballs, and Suzuki popped out to Gavin Sheets in front of the Cubs dugout for the second out. With Ian Happ at the plate, Foster led with three changeups on the first four pitches to get to a 2-2 count, then froze him with a 94-mph fastball at the knees to end the threat.
Hendriks followed him by recording the save, but this is one of those games where Foster's hold loomed larger.
Throw in a scoreless inning for Kendall Graveman in the seventh, and Reynaldo López finishing the sixth inning, and the bullpen carried Lucas Giolito's victory bid across the finish line.
Giolito's start looked similar to his previous one against the Angels, in that he successfully shook off a pair of homers to pitch pretty well around them. In this case, they both showed up in the third inning. Nico Hoerner jumped on a grooved 3-1 fastball and sent it out to left to give the Cubs a 2-1 lead, and Wisdom tacked on a solo shot off a 3-2 fastball before the inning was through.
The Cubs only mustered one other hit, and two other walks. When Giolito elevated his fastball or switched to his changeup, he had far more success. He finished the game with 10 strikeouts, an impressive total for only 16 swinging strikes.
The White Sox were able to rally from that 3-1 deficit. The Sox initially grabbed the lead because José Abreu read my post about his surging ground-ball rate and homered in the second inning, and after the Cubs posted the crooked number, Leury García provided an answer with a solo shot to center.
The other runs took a little bit longer to come together. In the fourth, Robert doubled, but he could only move to third on Grandal's lined single to right, and both risked being stranded when Pollock struck out. Sheets fell behind 1-2, but he has a knack for hitting how he's pitched when it can achieve something, and when he got a changeup down and away on a 1-2 count, he merely poked it through the left side to tie the game.
Two innings later, Abreu reached on a leadoff single, followed by a Robert walk. Grandal then grounded into a double play to jeopardize the threat, but Pollock came through with a muscled flare into the triangle behind where the second baseman usually plays (Madrigal was shifted on the other side of second).
That Pollock single didn't look like much, but it scored the winning run and saved him a lot of grief. Even with the go-ahead hit, Pollock still led the team with five stranded in his plate appearances.
Bullet points:
*Robert also helped preserve the one-run lead with his glove, as he caught Willson Contreras' deep drive with a leaping catch into the brick wall in dead center field. Robert grimaced after the collision and fell to the ground for effect, but he looked no worse for the wear afterward.
*Robert was credited with an outfield assist for throwing out Madrigal at second base from his backside. Madrigal tried to take an extra 90 feet with two outs in the fifth after Robert's attempt to catch a flare was deemed insufficient, but he was thrown out in a laughable fashion. However, a replay showed that Robert slid his glove underneath the ball before it hit the grass, so Madrigal would've been out had a replay been necessary.
*Madrigal went 2-for-3 with a stolen base, although it should've been 1-for-3. Also, Giolito struck him out.
