Grady Sizemore wasn’t sure what to expect in his first game as interim manager for the White Sox.
He watched as a blowout became a thriller in a City Series matchup against the Cubs on Friday at Guaranteed Rate Field.
The Sox, down by seven runs after three innings, found themselves within a run with the bases loaded and two outs in the ninth.
With most of the sellout crowd of 38,127 standing and screaming, Andrew Vaughn lofted a Héctor Neris high fastball to center fielder Pete Crow-Armstrong, who secured the catch as the Cubs held on for a 7-6 victory.
“I knew there was going to be a lot, I knew it was going to be different,” Sizemore said. “It was nerve-wracking. There was a little bit of everything in that game.
“It was a good first one.”
It looked like it was going to be all Cubs early on.
Ian Happ hit Garrett Crochet’s fourth pitch of the game for a leadoff homer. Three batters later, Cody Bellinger hit a two-run home run.
Isaac Paredes added a two-run homer in the third, and Nico Hoerner followed with a solo homer. Crochet exited after allowing a single to the next batter, Dansby Swanson, who later scored on a groundout to give the Cubs a 7-0 lead.
Crochet allowed seven runs on nine hits, both matching career highs, with five strikeouts and no walks in 2 1/3 innings.
“Throwing a lot of heaters kind of showed that the ball is still coming out really well,” Crochet said. “It’s just a matter of having the pitches beyond my four-seam play a factor in any facet in the game and today they didn’t.”
The Sox chipped away with four in the fourth, starting with a solo home run from Andrew Vaughn.
Sox left fielder Andrew Benintendi nailed Crow-Armstrong for the final out of the top of the fifth and then began the bottom of the inning with a home run to right against Cubs starter Jameson Taillon.
Benintendi homered again in the seventh — this time off Drew Smyly — to cut the Cubs’ lead to 7-6. Benintendi has homered in three games in a row for the second time in his career. The first occurrence was July 27-30, 2019, with Boston.
“After the third inning, the pitchers (relievers Touki Toussaint, Justin Anderson, Chad Kuhl and John Brebbia) locked it down and we started to score some runs and put some innings together,” Benintendi said. “As far as the homers, they come in bunches. So I’m going to try to keep riding this wave, hopefully.”
Entering Friday, the Sox were 0-73 when trailing after eight innings.
They began the bottom of the ninth with a single to right from Dominic Fletcher and a bunt hit by Brooks Baldwin. Two flyouts followed, bringing Benintendi to the plate. He worked a full count before drawing a walk, loading the bases for Vaughn.
“The crowd was involved, everyone was excited,” Benintendi said. “Good at-bats by those guys to get on early in that inning. It’s always fun to play in these kinds of atmospheres. It kind of feels like a playoff game.”
Vaughn got ahead in the count. But Neris rallied and made the big pitch on a 1-1 count to get the flyball to Crow-Armstrong as the Cubs earned their third 7-6 victory against the Sox this season.
“I feel like these games are always a little wacky against the White Sox,” Taillon said. “I feel like we probably all knew they were going to punch back and they weren’t dead over there and they weren’t done. Regardless of what type of year they’re having they’re still big-leaguers. And this is a rivalry game and it’s exciting and there’s tons of fans in the stands.
“I feel like since I’ve been here every game we’ve played them it’s just wacky and it’s kind of fun. It’s cool to be a part of. Definitely once they started clawing back it’s like, all right, we need to put our foot down.”
The Cubs are two under .500 (58-60) after improving to 6-2 in August.
The Sox, who have lost 23 of 24 games, are 62 games under .500 for the first time in franchise history. At 28-90, they joined the 1916 Philadelphia A’s (26-91-1) as the only teams in MLB history to lose 90-plus times in the first 118 games of a season.
Said Benintendi on Friday, “Kind of felt like a win, in a way.”
Sizemore agreed.
“It does in a way,” he said. “I don’t want to try to downplay the loss or anything, but I was really happy with the effort and the way the guys fought, played together and just the energy they brought. So many different things happened in that game. So many different things to pick us up or make a play. It was crazy. I didn’t imagine it that way, and wasn’t expected all the craziness to unfold like that but it was a great effort.
“I told them, ‘Let’s keep playing like that every night.’ “