ST. LOUIS -- As the skies darkened, the rain accelerated and his road gray jersey darkened, White Sox reliever John Brebbia was begging to keep going.
"John's out there arguing with the umpire, 'Let me finish, let me finish, let me finish,'" said Tanner Banks.
"‘Don’t you dare stop this game, just keep it going.’" Brebbia recalled yelling to CB Bucknor with two outs and the bases loaded in the bottom of the 10th. "I don’t know what they said back to me. I know what they wanted to say is, ‘You are an idiot. We are going to stop it.’"
Brebbia was an out away from completing easily the most cathartic escape of the this deeply unfortunate White Sox season, fresh off striking out Lars Nootbaar and Masyn Winn in the driving rain to improbably keep the bases juiced and a 6-5 Sox lead intact. An undercooked first pitch fastball slipping in at 90 mph to get ahead 0-1 on Nolan Gorman only underscored the problem that Korey Lee couldn't so much throw a baseball back to the right-hander without it getting soaked.
Still, Brebbia protested.
"I love the elements," Brebbia explained. "You don’t often get to play when it’s pouring rain because they stop the game. So I try to take every advantage of that as possible. It’s just an absolute disaster when it’s coming down like that, so you never know what’s going to happen. It was kind of fun."
Three hours and three minutes, four Tanner Banks pitches to pinch hitter Ivan Herrera, and one last questionable CB Bucknor strike call later, and the Sox clubhouse could finally agree with Brebbia. A low and away changeup sealed Banks' second career save, Bryan Ramos' foible in his first real defensive chance was erased, and Lee gave the last reliever in the Sox pen a bear hug worthy of a team that waited over six hours to collect their second road victory in 16 tries.
"I wouldn’t want to be on the other side of it," said starter Erick Fedde, who was taken off the hook after yielding a fifth inning five-spot. "Waiting around to lose would have stunk."
Fedde was due for a rough one, but was seemingly ducking it for four scoreless innings, pitching over three walks and a not-insignificant amount of hard contact, while a lefty-heavy Sox lineup built a 3-0 lead against Lance Lynn. But when Fedde led off the fifth by walking Gorman and allowing a sharp single to No. 9 hitter Michael Siani, an ominous third trip through the Cardinals order was punctuated by a three-run Nolan Arenado blast to center to make it 5-3.
An unlikely open to 5⅔ scoreless frames from the White Sox bullpen -- six up, six down from Tim Hill -- foreshadowed the wet and wild finish. Lee made up for a baserunning mishap in the second with the star offensive performance of the afternoon/evening. While his low liner in the fourth slid under Gorman's glove at second for a run-scoring error, his two-out flare off Andrew Kittredge cleared Gorman's leaping grasp for a game-tying two-run single in the sixth
There things stayed until extra innings, despite a ninth inning that threatened to be defined by Bucknor and/or reactions to him. Michael Kopech nailed José Fermín with an inside fastball, but split the plate on a 1-1 delivery to Willson Contreras as Fermín got the ridiculous jump needed to steal second against Lee's Best in Baseball* pop time. Clearly incensed, Kopech walked Contreras, but recovered to induce a groundout to short from Paul Goldschmidt, which both ended the inning and freed him up to give more guff to Bucknor. Kopech managed to escape ejection, but wound up not factoring into the wacky 10th inning anyway.
For someone throwing sinkers and sliders, Cardinals reliever Ryan Fernandez left everything up in the strike zone in the top of the 10th. Tommy Pham, enjoying polite applause from his old fans all weekend, connected on a sharp RBI single to score the Manfred Man and eventual game-winning run, and advanced to third on Eloy Jiménez's even sharper drive to center. Andrew Benintendi's soft flare to the right side was playable for Gorman, eliminating the chances for a less stressful 10th. And how.
"In that three hours and three minute delay, they stayed focused," said Pedro Grifol postgame.
"I ended up taking a nap," said Banks. "You can't stay locked in for a couple hours."
Bullet points:
*Ramos made his major league debut as a defensive replacement, as Grifol turned to Rafael Ortega as a ninth inning pinch hitter for Braden Shewmake against Ryan Helsely. Ramos' first impact on a major league game was inauspicious, as he gloved an Alec Burleson grounder while drawn-in with Goldschmidt coming home from third. Ramos' throw home to Lee bounced and allowed the Cardinals first baseman to retreat, loading the bases with no one out. Brebbia and Banks' escape kept it from becoming a lasting memory.
*Dominic Leone left in the sixth inning with lower back tightness after leadoff walk to Arenado. Jordan Leasure retired all three hitters he faced to address the immediate issue, but it contributed to the 'Banks as the last man standing' situation. The White Sox said Leone is day-to-day.
*Lee is hitting .271/.306/.475 in 62 PA on the year after a 2-for-4 day at the plate that was better than even that indicates. Becoming a viable bat in his own right for this offense, let alone out of the catcher spot, prompts interesting questions.
