The White Sox finally played the kind of game they’ve been chasing all season, and it was enough to leave Wrigley with something to show for it.
After dropping the first two games of the second crosstown series to the Cubs, Chicago answered in the finale by cleaning up the very issues that have been tripping them up for weeks: too many walks, shaky defense, and too little production with runners in scoring position unless the ball left the yard. This time, none of that buried them. The Sox didn’t hit a home run, and they still found a way.
Jose Urquidy set the tone in a bullpen-game setup, covering six innings of long relief without issuing a walk. That alone stood out, because Sox pitching had walked just three Cubs all afternoon. Urquidy was sharp beyond that, too, striking out eight and giving up only two hits.
The offense did its part in the moments that mattered. Andrew Benintendi brought in Miguel Vargas after Vargas opened the sixth with a double.
Then in the eighth, Vargas worked a one-out walk, Randal Grichuk came off the bench for Benintendi and doubled, and rookie Braden Montgomery followed by doubling both runners home. That was the difference between a clean win and the kind of frustrating night the Sox had endured in the series’ first two games, when they finished 2-for-11 with runners in scoring position.
Montgomery also made his mark in the field, throwing out a runner who tried to tag on a fly ball. The runner should not have gone, but the out still mattered. It was another example of the Sox doing the little things that have too often slipped away from them.
Chicago did get some help from the Cubs, who were uncharacteristically loose defensively. The North Side club failed to turn a few double plays and had a couple of other small mistakes. Still, the Sox earned the result with solid contact when it counted.
The win mattered beyond just salvaging the series. The White Sox had lost eight straight at Wrigley before breaking through, and they did it after being walked off twice in a row in the same ballpark. For a young team that has stumbled in tight road games, that’s not nothing.
There’s a broader lesson here, too. The Sox have had a handful of ugly losses lately, including back-and-forth games away from home like the one in Boston two weeks ago.
Those are the kinds of games they’ll need to survive in October, if they get there. And against pitching like they’re likely to see in the postseason, the home run won’t always be there to save them.
During the Detroit series, broadcasters noted that hitting coach Derek Shomon had been pushing the team to string together better at-bats instead of chasing pitches and trying to hit everything 460 feet. That approach worked against the Tigers, though the Sox still hit some homers there, too.
At Wrigley, the first two games brought some rough swings and ugly at-bats. The Cubs deserved credit for some of that, but Chicago also made life harder on itself by trying to do too much when a simple single the other way would have done the job.
The finale showed what the White Sox can look like when they keep the game under control. Now they have to make sure the lesson sticks.
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