Chicago White Sox manager Pedro Grifol couldn’t recall seeing a game like Saturday’s at Guaranteed Rate Field.
It was a wild matchup between the Sox and Detroit Tigers, with all three runs scoring on wild pitches.
Yoán Moncada scored the winner — touching home after José Cisnero’s high 96.4-mph fastball hit off plate umpire Cory Blaser’s face mask and bounced toward the Tigers bench — to give the Sox a 2-1 victory in 10 innings in front of 24,674.
According to Elias, it was the first game since at least 1920 that featured three-plus combined runs all scored via a wild pitch or passed ball.
“It was a weird way how the game went,” Moncada said through an interpreter. “Three runs, three wild pitches. Sometimes those things happen. You can’t really explain.”
Major League Baseball said Blaser was under evaluation after the final play. MLB will share any updates as they become available.
“I just hope he’s OK,” Sox starter Dylan Cease said. “I don’t know if a game’s ever ended like that.”
On a day when neither offense got much going, the teams took runs any way they could get them.
“It’s a major-league win and our guys did a really good job,” Sox manager Pedro Grifol said.
The teams combined for seven hits — the Tigers three and the Sox four.
Andrew Benintendi had two of the four for the Sox. He singled in the fourth, stole second, advanced to third on a wild pitch from Tigers starter Michael Lorenzen and scored on another wild pitch to give the Sox a 1-0 lead.
Zach McKinstry tripled and scored on a Cease wild pitch in the sixth to tie the game. The pitchers didn’t give up much else.
Cease allowed the one run on two hits with six strikeouts and three walks in 5⅓ innings.
“It was pretty good,” Cease said of his outing. “Would like to go deeper in the game, be more efficient. But I thought it was better than a lot of my previous starts.”
Lorenzen, who took a perfect game into the sixth inning May 27 against the Sox at Comerica Park, allowed one run on two hits with six strikeouts and no walks in seven innings.
“He did a really good job of mixing his pitches, pitching to both sides of the plate,” Grifol said of Lorenzen. “He threw a ton of strikes, kept the ball down when he needed to. It was just a good day for pitching. There were some really good arms on both sides. Both starters and both bullpens were pretty electric today.”
That included Liam Hendriks, making his second appearance of the season since coming off the injured list after having non-Hodgkin lymphoma. The reliever followed Keynan Middleton’s two-thirds of an inning with a perfect seventh that included one strikeout.
“It was clean,” Hendriks said. “Deeper counts than I would have liked. It’s all working back. Clean is clean and scoreless is scoreless and that’s all I can hope for right now.
“Velocity felt as if it was coming out good. Still a little bit not quite as location wise, but it’s all progressing. It’s moving forward. Also, that’s a few more days off than I’m used to as well. I mean from Monday to Saturday, so it’s getting back out there and getting my legs under me.”
Gregory Santos, Kendall Graveman and Reynaldo López also pitched scoreless relief innings for the Sox.
“They’ve been fantastic,” Hendriks said of the bullpen. “Bit of a rough stretch at the start but since they’ve been one of the best bullpens in baseball and that’s what was expected when we came into the season. Putting up zeros and pretty quickly as well.”
Moncada began the 10th on second as the automatic runner and advanced to third on a Romy Gonzalez bunt. He remained on third when Yasmani Grandal grounded out to second with the infield in.
The Tigers intentionally walked Gavin Sheets, and Jake Burger got hit with a pitch, loading the bases for Tim Anderson.
Cisnero’s first pitch to Anderson struck Blaser’s face mask and bounced toward the Tigers dugout. Moncada raced home to give the Sox their second straight win in the series.
“I just reacted and was able to score,” Moncada said.
It was a unique ending to a unique game.
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Source: Berkshire mont
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