This game had all of the individual elements of a classic Cleveland Heartbreaker. The White Sox built a modest lead early with some margin for error, but failed to build on it. Then they watched their starting pitcher hit a wall without warning, and one of their high-leverage relievers give up homers to José Ramírez and Josh Naylor with two outs in the eighth inning.
But the White Sox still won, because Jordan Leasure's summoned his finest moment to date to gum up the works.
Leasure entered with a 3-0 lead in the seventh, but with the bases loaded and nobody out because Erick Fedde gave up three singles to start the inning. Of course, it started with a goofy Naylor tomahawk infield single to kick it off, followed by a David Fry 10-hopper on a decent Fedde splitter, and finally a solid Will Brennan single that loaded the bases.
At least Leasure had the fortune of facing the 7-8-9 part of Cleveland's order, and he used the help. He struck out Bo Naylor on four pitches, and while he fell behind Tyler Freeman 2-0 and hung a 2-2 slider, he rebounded with a perfect above-the-zone fastball for a second punchout. Up came Kyle Manzardo, and when routine contact would preserve the shutout, that's when Leasure induced it, getting a second-pitch 4-3 groundout to end the threat.
When you look at Leasure's pitch chart, the slider to Freeman was the only real mistake he made.
("That little guy? I wouldn't worry about that little guy.")
Leasure's efforts, which could be appreciated in real time, loomed even larger in hindsight, because when Ramírez and Josh Naylor took John Brebbia deep with two outs in the eighth inning, all it did was make Michael Kopech earn a four-out save instead of the standard three-out variety. Kopech survived a couple of deep flyouts and a one-out single in the ninth to lock it down.
Fedde deserved the win -- and much better than the bare minimum for the quality start -- based on the way the first six innings unfurled. He limited the Guardians to just three singles, and while he only generated seven swinging strikes and three strikeouts, he made up for it with a bunch of weak contact, especially on his cutter. He allowed just four hits over 100 mph, and they resulted in four outs, including a Freeman double play that scuttled a Guardians scoring threat in the fifth.
The White Sox offense looked alive against Ben Lively early. Tommy Pham read Andrew Vaughn's double to the right-center gap perfectly and scored without a throw for a quick 1-0 lead in the first. In the second, Paul DeJong followed Bryan Ramos' leadoff double with a run-scoring single, and when it looked like the Sox would settle for one, DeJong stole second with two outs and scored on Tommy Pham's single to make it a 3-0 game.
That's all the offense the Sox produced. After notching five hits over the first two innings, they mustered just three hits over the final eight innings, and one was erased when Eloy Jiménez, hot off legging out a double, made an ill-advised heat check by attempting to tag up to third on Andrew Benintendi's flyout to left. The double play looked even worse when Ramos followed with a single that probably would've scored Jiménez, assuming Jiménez got a decent jump.
Bullet points:
*To whatever extent the Andrews are allowed to function, they're not allowed to do so simulatenously. Vaughn hit a couple of warning-track flies including the double, but Andrew Benintendi went 0-for-3 and dropped a fly ball. Because he lost it in the lights, he wasn't charged with the error.
*White Sox pitchers avoided walking a batter for just the third time all season, although Fedde plunked one.
