Randal Grichuk’s ninth-inning homer lifts White Sox past Cardinals after two earlier comebacks

St. Louis built the early lead, but never quite shut the door

The Cardinals did plenty right with the bats, especially in the innings when the scoreboard first tilted their way. Masyn Winn opened the scoring in the second with a double to left that brought home Nolan Gorman and Thomas Saggese, and Jose Fermin followed with a sacrifice fly to center to make it 3-0. After Chicago scratched back a run on Colson Montgomery’s walk in the fourth, St. Louis answered again when Nathan Church doubled to right and scored Gorman for a 4-1 edge.

That is the shape of a game the Cardinals usually expect to control: multiple extra-base hits, early scoring and useful work from several hitters instead of one isolated burst. Winn finished with two hits and two RBIs, Church went 3-for-4 with an RBI, and Leo Bernal later added a solo homer. St. Louis out-hit Chicago 8-6, and for long stretches it looked as if the cleaner contact belonged to the home side.

Chicago’s path back was different. The White Sox did not hit their way steadily into this win so much as they kept returning to the plate and forcing the Cardinals to handle one more baserunner. Even while batting just .188 as a team and striking out 12 times, they drew seven walks, were hit by three pitches and stole two bases. That is a strange offensive line for a winner, but it is also the clue to the whole night: Chicago kept the game open long enough for the late damage to matter.

The fifth inning was the hinge

If there was one inning that explained why St. Louis lost a game in which it had more hits, it was the fifth. The White Sox entered trailing 4-1 and came out tied without needing a barrage of extra-base contact. Munetaka Murakami worked a walk that forced in Sam Antonacci. Grichuk then grounded into a double play, but Kyle Teel scored on it anyway. Moments later, Tristan Peters singled to center to bring home Miguel Vargas, even if Peters was thrown out stretching the play into second.

That sequence was untidy, productive and revealing all at once. Chicago managed three runs in the inning, and the Cardinals even turned a double play during it, yet St. Louis still could not escape with the lead intact. The White Sox finished the game with only one extra-base hit, Grichuk’s homer in the ninth, but they kept manufacturing stress through walks and hit batters. A team can survive some of that. Surviving 10 free baserunners between walks and hit-by-pitches is much harder.

The sharpest contrast inside the Cardinals’ pitching line belongs to Kyle Leahy and Cooper Hjerpe. Leahy gave St. Louis three scoreless innings with four strikeouts to start the night. Hjerpe, in only one inning of work, allowed four runs, four walks and two hits while striking out three. Those two lines tell the story of the middle innings better than any grand theory does. Chicago did not overwhelm St. Louis with contact; it overwhelmed it briefly with traffic.

One swing settled a game full of leftovers

Bernal’s 421-foot homer to right-center in the eighth seemed, for a moment, like the Cardinals’ final answer. After all the traffic, all the missed chances and all the strikeouts on both sides, St. Louis finally held a 5-4 lead heading to the ninth. It was a clean, simple swing after a messy evening, and it gave the Cardinals a chance to escape a game that had been wobbling for hours.

Instead, the cleanest swing of all belonged to Chicago. With one aboard, Grichuk drove a 358-foot homer to right in the ninth, scoring Brenton Doyle and turning a one-run deficit into a 6-5 White Sox lead. Grichuk ended up with three RBIs between that homer and his fifth-inning run-scoring double-play ball, and his blast covered for an offense that had spent much of the evening leaving opportunity behind. Chicago stranded 19 runners, an enormous number for a winning team, but the ninth-inning swing made the earlier waste survivable.

The White Sox bullpen deserves its share of the credit as well. After St. Louis reached 4-1 in the fourth, Chicago’s relievers largely steadied the game. Hagen Smith gave the White Sox two scoreless innings with three strikeouts. Grant Taylor allowed Bernal’s homer but also struck out three in 1.2 innings. Jordan Hicks recorded a short scoreless outing, and Bryan Hudson closed the ninth for the save. St. Louis still drew six walks and piled up 13 strikeouts against Chicago pitching, but after the fourth inning the Cardinals managed only one more scoring play.

Our take: this was a stubborn win, not a polished one, and that distinction matters. Chicago proved it can win even when the batting average is low, but the White Sox should not want to live on six runs from six hits while leaving 19 men on base and committing two errors. The Cardinals have an even clearer lesson. Their pitchers struck out 12 and limited Chicago to one extra-base hit, yet seven walks and three hit batters gave away too much of the evening. When an opponent hits .188 and still scores six, the first place to look is not the box of hard contact. It is the free pass column.

Scoring moments

1. 2nd Inning

   Winn doubled to left, Gorman scored and Saggese scored.

2. 2nd Inning

   Fermín hit sacrifice fly to center, Winn scored.

3. 4th Inning

   C. Montgomery walked, Murakami scored, Meidroth to second, Peters to third.

4. 4th Inning

   Church doubled to right, Gorman scored.

5. 5th Inning

   Murakami walked, Antonacci scored, Vargas to second, Teel to third.

6. 5th Inning

   Grichuk grounded into double play, shortstop to second to first, Teel scored, Murakami out at second, Vargas to third.

7. 5th Inning

   Peters singled to center, Vargas scored, Peters out stretching at second.

8. 8th Inning

   Bernal homered to right center (421 feet).

9. 9th Inning

   Grichuk homered to right (358 feet), Doyle scored.