
Last night it was a rain delay without rain, tonight it was Cardinals Hall of Fame honors for Albert Pujols and Yadier Molina, so expect Sunday’s finale to be pushed back due to, dunno, no hot dogs in stock or something. But whatever the excuse, the Cardinals could not avoid the inevitable on Saturday.
With the White Sox down to their last strike after a battling but ultimately lackluster game in St. Louis, former Cardinals farmhand Randal Grichuk drove a sinker on the outer edge of the plate from closer Riley O’Brien to the shortest porch in the ballpark, putting the White Sox ahead, 6-5, and swelling their division lead back to 1 ½ games.
Grichuk, along with most of the White Sox hitters, was having a miserable game to that point, but his 358-foot doink of a round-tripper — a ball that the veteran seemed stunned by and stumbled out of the box over — made everything right:
For the first eight innings, the game looked to be a snapshot of two young, talented franchises moving in opposite directions, with fundamental play and potent offense a seeming hallmark of the St. Louis club and poor defense, mental lapses and an utter inability to string hits (and sometimes even contact at all) characteristic of the White Sox. But Grichuk, far outside of the young talent core of the White Sox, rescued the diaper dandies who had carried the club into September.
Sean Newcomb had another solid opening stint, gulping too many pitches in the first (20) but with just about the best outcome possible (three Ks and a walk). The sly southpaw came on for a second inning, but saw just two batters, adding a K but relinquishing a single before getting a quick hook (at 29 pitches) that no one really wanted to see: Luis Castillo, a career-long starter being asked to take the ball mid-frame.
Castillo poured gasoline on the embers, getting battered for a single, double, single and sac fly by the first four batters he saw, and a crooked number gave St. Louis a 3-0 lead early. (Instructively, in Castillo’s first clean start to an inning, the third, he worked through the Cards on five pitches.)
With the mood in the dugout flat, Munetaka Murakami followed up an utterly helpless K in the first inning with a battle of an at-bat with two outs in the fourth, stroking a single on the eighth pitch he saw. Another walk and Tristan Peters taking a ball off his shoulder sandwiched around a Grichuk walk loaded the bases for Colson Montgomery. The good news is Colson narrowed the deficit to 3-1 with a key RBI. The bad? It came via a walk against wild and ineffective Cards reliever Cooper Hjerpe. But Braden Montgomery wasn’t even able to match his surname kin, striking out.
After a Cardinals half-inning that saw a wild Castillo give that run right back, almost an identical arrangement loaded the bases for the White Sox in the top of the fifth: San Antonacci HBP, Kyle Teel walk and Miguel Vargas single setting up Murakami for a key RBI … once again, not a homer or even a single, but a walk, a second run forced in by Hjerpe.
But one key difference in the fifth was the number of outs: none. However, the theme of the swoon continued, as Grichuk stepped up to deliver Chicago another run … via GIDP. But with the White Sox down, 4-3, Peters delivered a ball in the left-center gap to tie things up … but was thrown out trying to stretch his hit to a double.
With the game now renewed and shortened to 5 ½ innings, manager Will Venable went to southpaw phenom Hagen Smith to take over. Not that Smith needs help at this point, but in extinguishing St. Louis on nine pitches the final out came on a mis-called K, as Cardinals third-sacker Nolan Gorman foul-tipped a ball scooped nicely off the ground by Teel but called a third strike and out by home plate ump Doug Eddings Alfonso Márquez.
Gorman’s woes extended onto the field, as his olé defense at third turned a possible inning-ending double play in the sixth into two men on for the White Sox, following a Colson HBP. But the mini-rally ended with, what new, a strikeout, this one from Teel. That out piled up a seventh runner left on base and fourth with two outs at the game’s halfway mark.
After another quick hook, this time for Smith (21 pitches, all spent simply melting through the Cardinals lineup), Grant Taylor entered in the bottom of the seventh. Taylor forgave Venable his overmanaging by blanking St. Louis while allowing only a walk.
The game seemingly came down to the eighth inning, with the White Sox adding another chapter to September’s swan song of South Side missed opportunities. In the top half, Colson and Braden drew two-out walks, but Antonacci grounded to third to extinguish the free-pass rally. In the bottom half Taylor remained for a second inning and the White Sox immediately paid for it, as Cards leadoff hitter Leo Bernal swung at three straight pitches out of the zone. Unfortunately, Bernal caught up with a 98 mph fastball at his chest that nonetheless cut the heart of the plate and turned on it 106 mph out to right:
There was no reason to expect that the White Sox, who had done all their damage in the game against a young reliever in his second MLB game and sporting a 7.20 ERA, would knot things up against Cards closer Riley O’Brien.
And they in fact did not knot it up, but won the game outright, thanks to the better of the veteran DH hydra this season, Grichuk. Without overhyping the moment, this is exactly the thrilling victory snatched from the jaws of defeat that can provide the kick needed to push a division title home over the final 14 games.
The White Sox still have not lost more than four consecutive games this season. Houston’s loss in St. Petersburg also increases Chicago’s pad to 1 ½ games for the No. 2 seed to The magic number is down to 13, and the White Sox are assured of arriving in Cleveland on Monday in first place.
MVP
Randal Grichuk: 1-for-4, 2 RBI, R, HR, GWRBI, 2 K, GIDP
Runners-Up
Hagen Smith: 2 IP, 3 K
Sam Antonacci: 2-for-4, HBP, R
Colson Montgomery: 0-for-1, 2 BB, RBI, HBP
Cold Cat
Luis Castillo: 2 ⅔ IP, 4 H, 3 ER, 3 BB, 2 K, E
Runners-Up
Miguel Vargas: 1-for-5, R, 3 K
Braden Montgomery: 0-for-3, BB, K
Grant Taylor: 1 2/3 IP, 3 H, ER, BB, 3 K, HR


















