ST. LOUIS – Throughout losing nine of 12 games, matching a season-high four-game skid, and seeing their division lead over the Cleveland Guardians shrink to just half a game, White Sox players and coaches insisted that vibes remained high.
They professed faith in the brand of baseball, the slugging-reliant offense, the piecemeal pitching staff and the loose clubhouse atmosphere that carried them to this point, would pull them out of a mid-September dive before they crashed into the ground. Then 35-year-old Randal Grichuk improbably sprayed a two-out, two-strike, two-run go-ahead opposite-field homer over the right field wall of Busch Stadium, where he began his career 12 years prior.
After Bryan Hudson pitched a perfect ninth to complete a theft of a 6-5 victory, something akin to all the injuries of a hockey team being revealed after a long postseason run played out in the visitor’s locker room, but in the form of White Sox players admitting how much they needed the moment that Grichuk provided.
“It was something that we really needed,” said Grichuk. “Hopefully now we can keep playing our game, and be in a lot better place.”
“I think it can do a lot,” said manager Will Venable of the win.
It was left unspoken, but it helps that the Guardians lost earlier in the afternoon in Minneapolis, and the White Sox are 1 ½ games up again, and will land in Cleveland on Sunday night still in possession of the American League Central lead.
“Momentum is a powerful thing,” said Kyle Teel, who came back from an 0-2 count against Cardinals closer Riley O’Brien to walk in front of Grichuk.
A momentum shift would be good, since the Sox certainly didn’t receive any assurances that all is in working order on Saturday in St. Louis. The 28-man roster is surely not that consumed with the club’s amateur scouting director resigning while under internal investigation, but the more pressing issue of trade deadline acquisition Luis Castillo’s struggles got worse, if anything.
Pitching behind an opener, Castillo lasted just 2 ⅔ innings and yielded three runs. The damage could have been worse had he not snuck a fastball by Cardinals RBI leader Alec Burleson with the bases loaded to end the fourth; a feat nearly as miraculous as Grichuk’s blast given that Castillo’s velocity had flagged into the low-90s, with no easy answers as to why.
“I don’t know why because I felt that my mechanics were good, my body feels good,” Castillo said via interpreter.
It’s a bit late for another skipped start to work further on his delivery.
“I don’t know if we have time to do that again,” said Venable. “The No. 1 thing is to make sure that he’s healthy.”
Venable appeared to shake up his lineup on Saturday, sliding a resurgent Teel near the top of the order, and moving the struggling Colson Montgomery and Braden Montgomery down. But he insisted he was just playing matchups for handedness as always, and not making a reactive late-season switch.
After second-guessing his own deployment of pinch-hitters in recent days, he was once more back to his aggressive ways, calling Grichuk off the bench to face a lefty in the top of the fourth.
When it meant that Grichuk wound up in a right-right matchup with O’Brien with two outs in the ninth, another constantly preached element of White Sox baseball emerged: stay on the fastball, even after four-straight sliders put him behind in the count 1-2.
“He took advantage of a mistake,” Venable said. “We all thought that there was another offspeed coming down below the zone.”
Sometimes an opponent’s mistake can be the difference, and the Sox were bound–they insisted–to get one eventually.
“Luckily he left a sinker on over [the plate],” Grichuk said. “Haven’t been able to get that big hit to push us over the top and I know we all feel it. Luckily tonight I was able to come through.”