If the White Sox lost this one, it would've looked like many losses Sox fans have seen before, from the pitiful performance with runners in scoring position, the costly out on the basepaths, and even the specific combination of a wayward Aaron Bummer slider escaping Yasmani Grandal to give the Astros the lead.
Yet the White Sox won this game in hostile territory because they out-chanced the Astros, and all they needed was what Andrew Vaughn delivered in the ninth.
Dusty Baker went to his best reliever with a tie game at home, but Ryan Pressly didn't resemble his best form, and the Sox came at him with four consecutive quality plate appearances. Oscar Colás flied out to the warning track in right, but Tim Anderson started the rally with a one-out walk, and Luis Robert Jr. bounced one through the left side to bring Vaughn to the plate.
Vaughn had faltered with the bases loaded two innings earlier, as Hector Neris worked him over with perfectly located fastballs and splitters for the second out. Neris then pitched Eloy Jiménez imperfectly, but Jiménez fouled off one fastball down the middle, watched another one, and eventually whiffed on a hanging splitter to thwart that rally.
That made the Sox 0-for-7 with runners in scoring position by the time Vaughn arrived, and sure enough, he fell behind 0-2 on a pair of fastballs. But Pressly wasted a couple of breaking balls to even the count, and when he tried to bust Vaughn inside with a fastball, it wasn't as inside as Neris worked him. Vaughn brought the hands in and rifled a line drive to the left-center gap that scored Anderson and Robert to give the White Sox a 3-1 lead.
Reynaldo López then entered the game to close it out, and while he gave up a moonshot to Y Yordan Alvarez, 1) Alvarez is really good at that, and 2) the bases were empty. He recovered by getting José Abreu to bounce out to third, then pitched Kyle Tucker carefully enough to walk him before striking out Yainer Diaz to save Pedro Grifol's first career win.
As for how the game was tied at 1, let's start in the seventh, when Dylan Cease finally started losing some of the bite on his breaking balls. He bounced one into Alvarez's leg for his first baserunner since the first inning, then hung one to Abreu for a palpable single to center. Grifol had Aaron Bummer ready and wasted no time pulling Cease, because the lefty Tucker came to the plate.
Alas, Bummer lost a six-pitch battle to Tucker for a walk, and while he struck out Diaz, his first-pitch slider to Jake Meyers nearly clipped his front foot. Either way it would've resulted in a run, because the hop caught Yasmani Grandal's wrist and bounced toward the first-base dugout. Alvarez came home, and the Astros led 1-0.
It was a shame, because Grandal had a really good game blocking behind the plate otherwise. But it was a short-lived shame, because Grandal atoned for the bad bounce with a two-out solo shot to right off Rafael Montero to tie the game at 1. It was only a solo shot because Yoán Moncada tried to stretch a two-base Abreu error into a three-base Abreu error to start the inning, but a good relay cut him down by a beat.
Nevertheless, the exchange of runs only meant that Cease had to sweat for a no-decision. He deserved better, because he allowed just one run on two hits and the HBP over 6⅓ innings while striking out 10. He gave up a single to Jeremy Pena to open the game, and Pena stole second on him, but then Cease retired the next 19 he faced to eliminate all worries.
He started out slider heavy, but the fastballs eventually arrived, and an unusual amount of curves as well. Every pitch looked crisp (at least until the seventh inning), and his Cy Young campaign is off to an encouraging start.
The White Sox offense made Framber Valdez work harder the second time through. They started two-out rallies in the third and fourth innings that went nowhere, but they had a legit chance to break through in the fifth. Elvis Andrus led off with a single, then moved to third on Romy González's base hit.
Anderson then was overanxious on a first-pitch curveball, hitting a grounder to third that resulted in Andrus getting cut down at the plate. Robert struck out, and although Valdez bailed Vaughn out of a terrible at-bat by bouncing a curveball into him, Jiménez grounded out with the bases loaded to kill the threat.
Jiménez was the only Sox to go hitless, finishing 0-for-5 with eight stranded, but at least the last one didn't matter. Vaughn was on second after giving the White Sox a two-run lead, and that was just enough cushion to start the year 1-0.
Bullet points:
*The decision to use González against the left-handed starter and Colás against the right-handed bullpen worked out. They each went 1-for-2.
*The White Sox were 1-for-10 with runners in scoring position, which beats Houston's 0-for-4.
*Kendall Graveman picked up the win for a scoreless eighth, although it was a couple feet away from being a 2-1 Houston lead because Martin Maldonado almost socked a hanging slider into the Crawford Boxes. He had to settle for a single because Andrew Benintendi played it well.
*Vaughn dropped an Abreu foul pop against the screen to extend his at-bat in the ninth inning, but no harm.
*Abreu went 1-for-4 with a strikeout and an error in his first game with Houston.
*The first White Sox game of the pitch clock era wrapped up in a tidy two hours and 38 minutes.
