Friday night, the Sox surprisingly made a game out of starting Jacob Turner against the frontrunner for the AL Rookie of the Year. Saturday night they needed to follow it up by pivoting from Chris Sale getting scratched for what can only be summed up as a bout of insanity, to a Matt Albers-led bullpen game.
It was…a challenge, but one the Sox were surprisingly up to.
1. Over 19 hours after the contest originally began, resumed on Sunday from a suspension due to rain Saturday night, Adam Eaton punched a walk-off single to left to score Avisail Garcia from third with two outs in the ninth, making a winner out of the struggling David Robertson. The Sox closer delivered four outs over the course of Saturday night and Sunday afternoon, striking out three and pitching over a dropped popout in the ninth.
2. Six innings from Albers, Dan Jennings and Tommy Kahnle went…well!? Albers would have gotten through two scoreless innings if not for a Dioner Navarro throwing error on a stolen base, which allowed Cameron Maybin to score from third on a groundout. Jennings struck out Miguel Cabrera, and got a lineout to third from Victor Martinez to escape a bases loaded jam in the third inning, and Kahnle blew away two Tigers hitters in his first inning of work, before yielding a solo shot to Justin Upton in the sixth. Having to resort to a bullpen game the night after they worked 5.2 innings in the middle of a stretch of 17 games without a day off will probably still be disastrous, but it was a nice effort all the same.
3. After navigating through the back of their pen with a 3-2 lead intact, the Sox eagerly turned the game over to Nate Jones, and got, well, dramatic irony in return. Jones induced a weak comebacker from Maybin to leadoff the inning, but was left punching the grass in anger after bobbling it to let the Tigers centerfielder reach. Maybin promptly stole second, and came around to score the equalizer when Nick Castellanos drilled a redemptive single to right field. It was the only hit Jones allowed in the inning.
4. White Sox hitters holding a status somewhere between “maligned” and “disowned” surprisingly carried the load early for the offense. Avisail Garcia drilled a liner to center in the second inning to bring Todd Frazier in on a sacrifice fly to tie the game at 1-1, and he was quickly followed by Dioner Navarro slapping a low rope that shorthopped and bounced over Castellanos’ glove at third, scoring Tyler Saladino.
Garcia followed up in the fourth by turning on a center-cut fastball(!) and drilling his first home run since late May out to left-center. Drunk in runs delivered by scrubs, holding onto a two-run lead with approaching rain, these were the salad days.
5. Detroit starter Matt Boyd returned to keep pitching after the first rain delay at the end of the second, but last just 4.1 innings despite striking out four to zero walks, and only one of his three runs allowed being earned. He ended the day with a lower game score than Albers.
Team Record: 47-50
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Lead Image Credit: David Banks