CLEVELAND -- All Grant Taylor had was hope.
He had one thought when Jo Adell connected on a first-pitch four-seamer with Chase DeLauter on first, two outs and the White Sox holding a two-run lead in the eighth inning of Thursday’s second game in the American League Division Series.
“Stay in the ballpark, please,” said a smiling Taylor of his thoughts when Adell drove his offering toward the left-center-field stands at Progressive Field. “Thankfully it stayed in. … They have a pretty tall wall over there. Just move on from it, next pitch and got an out.”
Adell’s blast, covering 413 feet, would have been the game-tying home run if he pulled it a few feet to the left. Instead, it was a long, loud triple cutting the lead to one. Nathaniel Lowe connected on the next Taylor offering, a curveball, with a line drive down the left-field line, caught by Sam Antonacci.
Lead intact. Mission accomplished. Exhale.
“Oh, nice catch from Sam,” said White Sox third baseman Miguel Vargas of his Spider-Man movie friend. “Yeah, I guess Sam wasn’t eating ice cream. So he made that play.”
“Today, they had good swings,” Taylor said. “But we had some really good defenders.”
Taylor needed just seven pitches (all strikes) to get through the final 1 1/3 innings, preserve the 2-0 ALDS lead for the White Sox and move them one win away from reaching the AL Championship Series. The White Sox could clinch a playoff series at home on Wednesday for the second time in franchise history and the first time since 1906, when they won the sixth and deciding game against the Cubs to win the World Series.
Since the playoffs began, Taylor has been a busy man. He threw a career-high 54 pitches to finish off the Astros in Game 1 of the Wild Card Series last Tuesday and came back on Saturday to strike out six over a four-inning save. He felt great on Wednesday and was told he possibly would be used for one inning, which morphed to 1 1/3 innings.
“I’ve recovered well,” Taylor said. “Been very diligent about how I go about my business. The team needs me to be able to pitch hopefully every day in the postseason. Hopefully I’m pitching for another 2 or 3 weeks. I felt good today. Going to take it into Wednesday.”
“Anytime you have a closer that has good stuff, you are waiting for the first one to come to the plate, and bat a few balls off, and just missed a couple of them in the big part of the park,” Cleveland manager Stephen Vogt said. “I thought our at-bats off Taylor were really good, just didn't get anything to fall.”
Anthony Kay and Sean Newcomb covered the first 2 1/3 innings Monday, allowing two runs combined (one earned). Sean Burke gave up one hit and one run over 5 1/3 stellar innings, striking out six.
That one run came off Adell’s triple. But Burke certainly had no problem with the inherited run scoring based on the job Taylor has been doing.
“He's a dog, man. I'm out of words to describe him,” Burke said. “I was talking the other day, just me and him, when he had Tommy John, I had shoulder surgery, we were together, and I've kind of watched his growth from whenever he was 21, 22 years old to what he is now.
“Just to see the work he puts in and how serious he takes his craft, I got no words, man. You know, proud of what he does.”
The White Sox relievers’ view from the bullpen on a drive like Adell’s disappears for the last 25 feet. All they heard was the crowd cheering, more cheering and then they watched helplessly as Adell sprinted to third.
At that point, they knew the White Sox had a chance. And they knew the right man for the job was on the mound.
“Thankfully we were able to get out of it,” Taylor said. “And go back out and get the job done.”