White Sox 10, Rockies 5: Seven run surge leads to win

The Chicago White Sox won the finale of the three-game set against the Colorado Rockies at Coors Field. In the battle of the tank, the Rockies took the series, but the win this afternoon moved the Good Guys to 49-75, ahead of the Rockies in the standings. Yay! After a rough first two games, the offense finally came alive, and most of it all came from one inning late in the game. Let’s break it down.

We saw Chris Flexen and Dylan Cease go head-to-head this afternoon, and both had solid starts. The first run of the ballgame went to the South Siders and came off the bat of Andrew Vaughn in the top of the second inning.

In the top of the third, Andrew Benintendi and Vaughn singled, and a throwing error led to Benintendi scoring after stealing third base.

The first run and hit of the ballgame for the Rockies came from a Charlie Blackmon dinger to right-center field, but they would still trail 2-1.

It seemed like it was going to be a quick bottom of the fourth inning for Dylan Cease until trouble quickly brewed as Elehuris Montero hit a two-out single that Zach Remillard couldn’t handle. Harold Castro followed with a single, and Michael Toglia singled as well to score Montero. Cease went on to walk Austin Wynns to load the bases but struck out Brenton Doyle to keep the game tied at 2-2.

Blackmon continued his hot day against Cease and started the bottom of the fifth inning with a triple to Trayce Thompson in right, and Ezequiel Tovar followed with a single to score him and was called out trying to advance to second on the play. Still, the Rockies took a 3-2 lead. Cease began to unravel a bit after a Ryan McMahon single, a walk to Nolan Jones, and a wild pitch to move both runners to second and third. Harold Castro singled to center to score both runs and extend the lead to 5-2.

That would be the end of the day for Cease, who had a good start, but let two innings really get out of hand, resulting in five runs for the Rockies. He surrendered eight hits, two walks, and six strikeouts and bumped his ERA up to 4.50. Bryan Shaw would replace him to finish the inning.

Elvis Andrus was ejected in the top of the sixth inning during an at-bat by Luis Robert Jr. and was replaced by Lenyn Sosa.

Flexen went six innings, giving up seven hits, two runs, and five strikeouts in a solid outing. He was replaced by Jake Bird to start the seventh inning, and the White Sox immediately capitalized. The Rockies have somewhat of a rocky bullpen (no pun intended), and Gavin Sheets started off the inning with a leadoff double. With two outs, Remillard doubled to score Sheets and cut the deficit to 5-3.

The real fun came in the top of the eighth inning as Matt Koch replaced Bird. Benintendi had his third hit of the game with a single, and after last night Koch did not want to mess with Robert Jr., which led to a walk for him. Vaughn singled to quickly load the bases with no outs. Although the White Sox typically do not drive in RISP, today was not that day. Yoán Moncada smoked a ball that was pretty close to a grand slam if only it had a bit more height, but instead was a two-run double to tie the game at 5-5.

Lefty Justin Bruihl came in for the Rockies, and pinch-hitter Carlos Pérez popped out to induce the first out. The Rockies had a plan set up by walking Yasmani Grandal to load the bases again and go with the lefty-lefty matchup against Oscar Colás, but Colás took advantage of the plan, hitting another two-run double to center to give the team a 7-5 lead.

Do you like home runs? We will give you home runs. Thanks to Sosa entering the game after Andrus’ ejection, we got a three-run bomb from Sosa, his first since April.

Gregory Santos pitched the bottom of the ninth in 1-2-3 fashion to secure a much-needed win.

Shoutout to our announcer Jason Benetti, who announced almost the entire game alone after Steve Stone left early on due to stomach issues. Also, a shoutout to the crowd of dedicated White Sox fans who showed up for this series, there seemed to be a decent amount of cheers during the game today, and it was refreshing to hear.

A brand new series starts tomorrow night back at Guaranteed Rate Field against the red-hot Seattle Mariners, who are fighting for a playoff spot. It should be fun to watch as Luis Castillo goes against Touki Toussaint starting at 7:10 p.m. CT. Everyone enjoy the rest of this beautiful and warm Sunday evening, and we will see you back at home shortly.

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Six Pack of Stats

By Melissa Sage-Bollenbach

FanGraphs

Pressure Play

Oscar Colás handled the pressure like a champ when he doubled to center in the top of the eighth inning, scoring Andrew Vaughn and Yoán Moncada. The clutch hit pushed the Sox ahead 7-5, earning him a sky-high 4.26 LI.

Pressure Cooker

The pinch-hit double by Oscar in the eighth gave him a 2.78 pLI on the afternoon.

Top Play

Moncada doubled on a liner to right in the eighth inning that tied the game up 5-5 and secured him a 28.6% WPA.

Top Performer

Despite a Colorado loss, Charlie Blackmon was the game’s top dog. He went 2-for-4 with a home run and a 22.2% WPA.

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Hardest Hit

Luis punched a 113.6 mph lineout to left in the top of the ninth.

Weakest Contact

Austin Wynns lost when he grounded out softly at 51.8 mph to Dylan Cease in the bottom of the third.

Luckiest Hit

Elehuris Montero’s only hit of the day had a .070 xBA and found a hole just past second baseman Zach Remillard in the bottom of the fourth.

Toughest Out

Robert’s ninth-inning lineout had a .780 xBA.

Longest Hit

In the bottom of the third, Charlie Blackmon hit his seventh round-tripper of the year 455 feet to right-center field.

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Magic Number: 27

The team has blown many leads, but they’ve also had a decent amount of come-from-behind wins. Today was the White Sox’s 27th comeback of the year.

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