Sunday was looking like another White Sox debacle. Thanks to bad relief pitching and shoddy defense, they were down four runs in the bottom of the ninth inning and seemingly three outs away from their 11th straight defeat.
Then the lineup started to chip away against Tampa Bay reliever Jalen Beeks. Jake Burger drove in a run with a double, Oscar Colas contributed with a sacrifice fly and Elvis Andrus cut the deficit to one with a single. Adam Haseley - starting in place of Luis Robert Jr. - tied the game with a single off Garrett Cleavinger.
Andrew Vaughn followed with a walk-off three-run home run, giving the Sox an improbable 12-9 win to end their 10-game losing streak.
“That felt like a huge weight off our shoulders,” Vaughn said. “April showers bring May flowers, so here we go.”
The Sox hope that’s the case.
A team apparently in the middle of a championship window will enter May 8-21 after a disastrous March and April and narrowly avoided losing 11 in a row for the first time since July of 1956. “Sell the team!” chants directed at owner Jerry Reinsdorf were loud Saturday night and the questions about the team’s construction have only gotten louder during the nosedive.
Sunday’s comeback won’t solve those issues, but at least there’s something positive.
“We’ve got some fight in that clubhouse,” manager Pedro Grifol said. “It takes the ball bouncing your way one time to just lift everybody up and just put us in that mindset of, this can happen.”
The comeback was necessary because of what preceded it in front of an announced crowd of 17,049.
Prior to leaving with a trainer, Reynaldo Lopez allowed Luke Raley’s go-ahead two-run home run in the eighth inning. Kendall Graveman gave up two more runs in the eighth (one earned) before Aaron Bummer surrendered another pair in the ninth.
There was also a defensive gaffe when Romy Gonzalez stayed in the game after pinch-running for Luis Robert and subsequently dropped a fly ball in left, leading to a run.
Usually, that recipe leads to a loss. It didn’t Sunday for the Sox, who pulled off a badly needed win. The way they won could also help.
“I was talking about it after, I think that was almost more beneficial for us as a club than if we went out there and put up 12 in the first,” said starter Mike Clevinger, who went five innings and gave up two runs. “That’s the morale-booster we need.”
The Sox also need their lineup to function the way it did in the ninth when they allowed Beeks to work himself into trouble.
“Happy for Andrew and everybody in that inning who contributed,” said Haseley, who tied a career high with four hits. “It was a really cool moment.”
For Sunday to be more than just a blip in a lost season, the Sox have plenty to do. Though he didn’t say it, Grifol seems to understand that reality.
“Just like I say flush it on the bad ones, I’m not going to say that yet on this one because I still want to enjoy it a little bit, but we’ve got to flush this one too at some point and get back to work on Tuesday,” Grifol said. “I don’t want to say that yet because I do want to enjoy it a little bit and I want them to enjoy it because that doesn’t really happen that often in this game - seven runs in the last inning to walk them off - but once we get here Tuesday we’ve got to flush this one and get to work.”
