The Nationals hit six homers. How could they lose?
The Nationals committed four errors. How could they win?
The tension between powerful hitting and incredibly sloppy play thrashed itself out over 2 hours and 54 minutes at Nationals Park, with the White Sox taking advantage of numerous gifts for an 8-1 lead through 4½ innings, only to fall behind 9-8 after Jordan Leasure gave up Luis García Jr.'s third homer of the night.
But that fourth and final error made redemption possible. After Jose A. Ferrer fumbled away Kyle Teel's bouncer up the line with one out in the ninth, Colson Montgomery swatted a thigh-high, plate-splitting sinker into the second row behind the right field wall to provide a forceful rebuttal to Washington's string of unanswered runs: Eight is enough.
"It’s sick," said Montgomery. "I couldn't do it without Teel getting on, hustling it out. It's one of those moments where you can try to do too much, you can try to over-swing, you can try to hit home runs and it usually never happens. I just felt comfortable."
Grant Taylor overcame a leadoff single to nail down the save, as the White Sox flipped their worst loss of the season into their ugliest win. Credit them for giving fans a reason to watch 160 games in.
"It's game [160] and we're not in the postseason, so a lot of guys who could have packed their bags and went home," Taylor said. "But everyone in here wants to win ballgames."
From the onset of the game, it appeared the White Sox were finally able to pick on somebody their own size after spending the first part of the week getting swept in the Bronx. The Nationals booted two grounders to open the game, and the White Sox capitalized with a four-run frame off Cade Cavalli before Yoendrys Gómez took the ball.
"We talk all year about being aggressive, talked about when things don’t go well because we’re not aggressive," Will Venable said. "Especially in the case where the opposition is making mistakes, you have to be aggressive and make them play. Today was a good example of us doing a nice job."
The Sox tacked on two more in the fourth on a Lenyn Sosa solo shot and a Kyle Teel RBI single, then two more in the fifth on a Sosa RBI double and a Will Robertson sac fly. Sosa was cut down at third as the trailing runner for a 9-3-5 double play that still allowed Edgar Quero to score, but cut the inning short, and the game turned on a dime as it entered the second half.
Gómez, who allowed just a Josh Bell solo shot through four innings, gave up another solo shot to García in the fifth. However, that only made it an 8-2 game as Gómez qualified for the win.
How he arrived at a no-decision astounds. Góméz's journeys into the sixth inning have always been perilous, and this one was no different. He was able to complete six innings for the first time in his major league career, but not without paying a price. CJ Abrams opened the inning with a homer, Daylen Lile doubled with one out, and then García struck for his second dinger before Gómez could close the door, narrowing the White Sox's lead to 8-5.
"It doesn't matter if you're winning or losing, you always want to attack the hitters and finish them pretty quick," Gómez said via interpreter, downplaying any notion of pitching to the score. "I just missed a couple pitches, and at this level, when you do that, you're gonna pay for it. They are good hitters and they took full advantage of it."
While Gómez got bloodied, he still managed to hand a three-run lead for the bullpen to cover for three innings, which is by no means an outrageous request. Brandon Eisert responded as such by throwing a scoreless seventh, erasing a leadoff single by getting James Wood to ground into a double play.
In came Jordan Leasure, riding a 12-game scoreless steak during which he allowed just two hits and three walks over 14 innings. He entered with the White Sox leading 8-5 with six outs remaining, but by the time he left, the White Sox trailed 9-8, with four outs to go.
He simply could not locate. He walked Abrams on five pitches to open the inning, failed to elevate an 0-2 high enough to get by Bell, who singled. Leasure then started Lile with a middle-middle fastball, and Lile launched it over the right field wall to tie the game at 8.
After Dylan Crews struck out, García came to the plate with two homers to his name, and while Leasure got ahead 0-2 on breaking balls before bouncing a splitter in the dirt. On 1-2, the call was an elevated fastball, but this one too stayed right down the pipe, and García whipped it into the right field bullpen for the Nationals' first lead of the night. As the win expectancy chart shows, it didn't last.
Bullet points:
*This is the third time the White Sox have given up six homers and won, with their other two victories coming against Detroit in 2002 and 1995. They're 3-16 overall.
*Fraser Ellard picked up his first win of the season by replacing Leasure with two outs and nobody on and striking out the only batter he faced.
*Taylor picked up his sixth save, meaning he's one behind Leasure for the team lead.
*Sosa finished a triple shy of the cycle during his 3-for-4 night, so he still leads the White Sox home run race by two.
*The Nationals bullpen retired 11 of 12 before Ferrer's error, with the lone exception a Derek Hill pinch-hitting HBP in the eighth. Hill then flagged down James Wood's line drive to left center to get Taylor his first out of the ninth, so he had a productive two innings off the bench.
