The White Sox didn’t exactly cruise through Thursday’s finale with the Yankees. They spent nine innings staring at a shutout, traded blows in extra innings, and still found a way to walk off with a 2-1 win in 11.
That’s become a familiar script for a club that now leads the American League with nine walk-off victories. It also fits a team that entered the day leading the AL in runs per game at 4.8, even if the offense took a long, quiet turn before finally breaking through. After winning their last two games against New York in their last at-bat, the Sox did it again - this time for real, with Fernando Cruz throwing four straight bad ones to Tristan Peters with the bases loaded and two outs in the 11th.
The winning run came after a chain of pressure that kept tightening. Sam Antonacci opened the inning with an infield single that Ben Rice barely kept in the infield, then Colson Montgomery fell behind 3-0 before Cruz got him to chase a full-count splitter and force Peters to the plate. From there, Cruz missed four times high and wide with fastballs, and Peters didn’t have to do much deciding at all.
The Sox had already pushed the game to that point by matching New York in the 10th. Trent Grisham opened the scoring for the Yankees with a first-pitch fastball off lefty Chris Murphy, then Andrew Benintendi answered for Chicago with a backdoor slider through a drawn-in infield off Angel Chivilli after a wild pitch moved Peters to third. A replay review in the top half determined Chase Meidroth didn’t quite get enough stretch for a double play on an Ali Sánchez bunt, and the bottom half ended when Meidroth chopped into an inning-ending double play.
For all the drama late, the real backbone of the night was Sean Burke. The right-hander turned in his fifth straight quality start, his third double-digit strikeout performance of July, and six scoreless innings against the Yankees. It wasn’t always tidy, but it was sturdy enough to keep Chicago in range until the offense finally found daylight.
Burke opened with a first inning that could have gone sideways fast: a catcher’s interference and a walk put the first two Yankees on, but he settled in with two strikeouts and then got Spencer Jones to pop up a high heater to finish a 20-pitch frame. He ran off five straight strikeouts across the second and third, mixing five different pitches to miss bats. Later, he froze Anthony Volpe with a curve to strand runners in the fourth, then worked around an Austin Wells double in the fifth with lineouts from Grisham and Ben Rice.
The sixth could have been messy too. Jasson Domínguez led off with a triple, but he overslid third and was tagged out by Colson Montgomery. Burke then finished the inning with two routine fly outs, which felt even more routine after the scare.
On the other side, Yankees left-hander Ryan Weathers gave New York another scoreless inning in a game where both managers were trying to patch together the bullpen after the night before. He didn’t bring Burke’s velocity, but his sinker-slider mix produced 11 groundball outs and helped him escape trouble. Weathers got through a pair of key spots by working around Montgomery, who has had success against left-handed pitching all year.
After hits from Munetaka Murakami and Randal Grichuk, Weathers fell behind Montgomery 3-0, then got an inning-ending rollover on a sinker that had enough sink on it. Later, when the Sox started the sixth with Miguel Vargas lining out to short and Grichuk singling, Montgomery rolled over another sinker for an inning-ending double play. Those were the only two at-bats with runners in scoring position Chicago managed against him.
The game also had its share of small, strange moments. The Yankees challenged early to overturn a Grisham check-swing on a ball that was called catcher's interference in the first, and they also won a challenge on Ben Rice’s tag at first base after he swung down onto Chase Meidroth’s helmet. Chicago, meanwhile, burned both of its challenges by the third inning: Everson Pereira lost one on a second-inning strike three call, and Edgar Quero lost another on a 1-2 fastball to Wells that missed the zone by inches before Wells struck out on the next pitch.
Jazz Chisholm Jr. was picked off to end the seventh after opening the inning with a single, and he later left the game looking uncomfortable while running.
The crowd of 29,384 gave the getaway-day game a solid Thursday turnout, and the Yankees, as usual, helped.
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