Spirit of 7-6: Sox rally falls short to Cubs, but put it on the board anyway
No one should blame the White Sox for counting Friday's 7-6 loss to the Cubs as a victory.
Their best pitcher gave up 7 early runs, but they battled within 1 and loaded the bases in the ninth inning before Hector Neris nailed down the save with a flyout to center. It was the third time in the teams’ three meetings the Cubs have prevailed by that score.
“Obviously, we lost, but it kind of felt like a win in a way,” Sox left fielder Andrew Benintendi said after contributing a pair of home runs, along with an impressive outfield assist.
The White Sox should be happy to escape the dreariness of their two epic losing streaks. Friday's game against the cross-town rivals drew a sellout crowd and brought fans to their feet with the tense ending.
“It's always fun to play in that kind of atmosphere,” Benintendi said. “It kind of felt like a playoff game.”
This was the managerial debut of Grady Sizemore, who replaced Pedro Grifol the previous day. This was a solid opening test of pitching moves and game strategy.
“That was a good one. It was awesome,” Sizemore said. “Just a hard-fought game. Great energy, the crowd — everything about that game was exciting. I couldn't be more proud of those guys in there.”
In the first inning, Cody Bellinger hit the first home run Garrett Crochet has given up to a left-handed hitter in the majors, 192 plate appearances entering this game.
“I knew it was a tough at-bat didn't know the exact numbers,” Bellinger said. “Just kind of looked for my pitch and put my swing on it, it's as simple as that. I saw that one well and just tried to swing through it.”
Ian Happ led off the game with a home run, then Isaac Paredes and Nico Hoerner went back-to-back in the third and the Cubs were off to a 7-0 lead.
Crochet was tagged for all 7 runs on 9 hits in just 2⅓ innings pitched. It matched Crochet's worst outing this season. He allowed 7 runs in 3 innings on April 19 at Philadelphia.
“Felt good, just wasn't getting the ball to the glove side at all,” Crochet said. “When I'm not doing that well, the game kind of spirals like it did tonight.”
Crochet threw a pitch behind Bellinger the second time he was at the plate. He said that one was a sinker, something new in his arsenal.
“I started working on that pitch in bullpens about two weeks ago,” Crochet said. “For me to even be using it right now and feeling as comfortable as I am with it is good. To have a miss like that stinks, but I threw a really good one to (Pete Crow-)Armstrong.”
Benintendi not only hit 2 home runs, he also pulled off a nearly impossible defensive feat, throwing out Crow-Armstrong at the plate from left field. It took a perfect throw on Miguel Amaya's single to nail PCA by a hair, but Benintendi pulled it off.
Benintendi now has 5 home runs in the last five games, so don't credit the manager change for lighting a fire. He's now hitting .214 on the season — not ideal, but up from .196 roughly two weeks ago.
Andrew Vaughn got the Sox on the scoreboard by leading off the fourth with a home run and they ended up scoring 4 runs in the inning off Jameson Taillon.
The Cubs missed plenty of scoring chances. Crow-Armstrong led off the second with a triple, but Crochet struck out the next three hitters. The Cubs put two runners on to open the eighth, then Michael Busch hit a rocket that was caught by shortstop Nicky Lopez, who stepped on second to double off Mike Tauchman.
With the bottom of the order up in the ninth, the Sox got a single from Dominic Fletcher, a bunt single from Brooks Baldwin, then a walk to Benintendi after two flyouts. Vaughn's flyout brought an action-packed game to an end.
“I didn't really know what to expect,” Sizemore said. “I knew it was going to be a lot, I knew it was going to be different.
“It was nerve-wracking. There was a little bit of everything in that game. It was a good first one. I hope they’re all like that.”