Brayan Rocchio had Grant Taylor’s number again, and the Guardians made it count in the ninth.
A night after Rocchio beat Taylor with a first-pitch fastball for a walk-off two-run homer on July 2, the matchup ended in Cleveland’s favor once more Wednesday afternoon. This time, with runners on second and third and two outs in the ninth, Taylor started Rocchio with a curveball for strike one, then got him to foul off a slider for strike two. He went back to a fastball up and away.
Rocchio didn’t square it up the way he had in July. The ball left his bat at 88.8 mph and carried an expected batting average of just .060, but it kept floating toward the left field corner.
Sam Antonacci gave chase and made his best effort with a sprint and dive, but he couldn’t get there. He trapped the ball on the way back up off the turf, and Rocchio had another two-run hit for another walk-off in a 7-6 Guardians win.
Taylor had already worked himself into trouble before the final pitch. Nathaniel Lowe singled past a diving Chase Meidroth, then Patrick Bailey walked with one out to put the go-ahead run on. Both runners moved up on Petey Halpin’s soft groundout to first, and Taylor never got the third out, which would have been his sixth of the day.
He had navigated the eighth relatively well and owned the White Sox’s only two strikeouts of the game, but the late matchup with Steven Kwan left him no room for error. With a base open, the only real path was to challenge Rocchio, and Taylor couldn’t finish it.
That ending wiped out another gritty comeback by the White Sox, who had climbed out of a 3-0 deficit after Chris Murphy’s opening outing went sideways. Chicago got on the board in the fourth when Jo Adell misread Brenton Doyle’s deep fly to right, turning it into a triple, and Doyle scored on an Antonacci single.
The White Sox kept pushing in the fifth. Tristan Peters was hit by a pitch, moved to third on a Chase Meidroth double to right - another rough read by Adell - and came home on Miguel Vargas’ sacrifice fly to cut it to 3-2.
Their biggest burst came in the sixth, where the pressure finally broke through again. Antonacci singled to start the inning against Craig Yoho, who then walked Kyle Teel. Colson Montogmery pinch-hit for Luisangel Acuña and lined out to center, but Antonacci took third, and a walk to Peters loaded the bases with one out.
Hunter Gaddis came in for the right-handed threat, but Chicago kept the inning alive. Meidroth lined a single to left to score Antonacci and make it 4-3, Randal Grichuk followed with a game-tying sacrifice fly, and Vargas delivered the big swing with a two-out, two-run single that put the White Sox ahead 6-4.
For most of the night, that looked like enough.
Davis Martin was forced into action early, entering with two outs in the first after Murphy gave up back-to-back homers to Adell and Bazzana. Martin settled things down and gave Chicago 5 ⅓ innings of useful bulk work, allowing two runs on four hits and a walk without striking out a batter.
Bazzana’s second homer, a solo shot in the sixth, brought Cleveland within 6-5 and counted as the earned run against Martin. He may have been more bothered by the unearned one, though, after he bounced a pickoff throw with runners on the corners and let Rocchio score to make it 4-2. Adell was at the plate when the inning ended with a 6-4-3 double play.
The White Sox have now been walked off eight times this season, and three of those have come against the Guardians.
Chicago also had two sacrifice flies Wednesday, more than it had in its previous 21 games combined. That went along with a 3-for-8 night with runners in scoring position.
Cleveland was just 1-for-5 with RISP, but the one hit was the one that mattered most.
Munetaka Murakami struck out four times from the cleanup spot and only managed a walk, while Doyle looked out of place batting fifth but still finished 2-for-3 with a run scored.
Martin’s pickoff mistake stood out because he had just made a terrific play on a swinging bunt by Angel Genoa the inning before, spinning and firing while falling away from first base and still hitting his target.
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