The Toronto Blue Jays scored the go-ahead run on a two-out, two-strike wild pitch by reliever Craig Kimbrel in the eighth inning and held on to beat the Chicago White Sox 2-1 on Monday at Rogers Centre.
With runners on first and third and two outs, Kimbrel threw two strikes to Teoscar Hernández. The third pitch went to the backstop, and pinch runner Breyvic Valera scored to break a 1-1 tie.
The Sox took the lead when Andrew Vaughn knocked in Yoán Moncada in the sixth. The Blue Jays tied the game on a two-out RBI single by Vladimir Guerrero Jr.
Sox starter Lance Lynn pitched seven strong innings, allowing one run on four hits with four strikeouts, but did not factor in the decision.
The Sox were without Tim Anderson, who sat for his third straight game. The shortstop missed the final two games of the weekend series against the Tampa Bay Rays, both of which the Sox lost. Before Sunday’s game, manager Tony La Russa said Anderson’s “legs are still barking.”
“He’s much improved,” La Russa said before Monday’s game. “Just don’t feel confident playing him today.”
The Sox are in a stretch of seven straight games on artificial surfaces, but La Russa said Monday that wasn’t a factor.
“He’s got soreness,” La Russa said. “We just want to get rid of the soreness for certain before he goes back out there.”
La Russa said the team’s 9½-game lead in the American League Central also did not influence the decision to rest Anderson.
“If this was a one- or two-game lead and it’s Aug. (23), he would not play today and he probably would not play tomorrow,” La Russa said. “Now, if it’s Sept. 22, there would be a question. But his legs are such an important part of his defense, baserunning, everything else, that what do you gain by sending him out there and telling him to be careful?
“The direct answer is the lead has nothing to do with him not playing because we’re into winning as many as we can as quickly as we can and have too much respect for the game and our opponents we are playing and the ones that are chasing us.”
