CHICAGO -- Tim Anderson made a perfect throw to the plate to nail Jorge Soler in the sixth inning of a tie ballgame Friday, helping the White Sox eventually walk off the Marlins.
But the Chicago shortstop wasn’t falling back on that web gem after his ninth inning miscue on a similar play Saturday afternoon allowed the tying run to score and contributed to a five-run Miami rally during the White Sox 5-1 loss at Guaranteed Rate Field.
“Last night don't matter,” Anderson said. “Nobody cares about last night. I think it's about, 'What have you done lately?' And we seen what I just did. But just continue to keep working, keep trying to get better, and we'll leave it at that.
“I just tried to rush the throw. I knew they had a fast runner at third. I just really tried to rush it. I just [messed] it up. That's really what it was.”
Anderson’s error came with the bases loaded, nobody out, a fast pinch-runner in Jonathan Davis at third and Bryan De La Cruz at the plate as the Marlins tried to overcome a 1-0 deficit achieved through an Andrew Vaughn home run in the fourth off Sandy Alcantara. White Sox manager Pedro Grifol said a play was on where Anderson had the option of trying to turn a double play or go home if there was a chance and he might have got caught in the middle, but Anderson quickly admitted the mistake.
The Marlins added four more runs off Joe Kelly (1-3) and Garrett Crochet. Kelly has been good overall this season for the White Sox, retiring 31 of 32 hitters at one point in high-leverage situations, but he’s usually not the ninth-inning guy. He was on Saturday, though, with Kendall Graveman and Liam Hendriks unavailable.
“We took a one-run lead to the ninth and we had the guy we wanted on the mound,” Grifol said. “Get after it tomorrow.”
“If you see the stats, this is pretty much one of the best outings from Sandy,” said Jesús Sánchez, who drew a nine-pitch walk off Kelly to force in the go-ahead run, via interpreter Luis Dorante Jr. “And so that was top of our minds. We were thinking, ‘We’ve got to win this game. We’ve got to continue, we’ve got to battle in the game.’ But if you think about it, like at the end of the game, we noticed that it's not about home runs or doubles, singles. You can also win games with a walk.”
Grifol made clear before the game how he wasn’t going to use relievers three straight days, leaving Graveman and his 16-outing scoreless streak out of the mix. Hendriks had also pitched three times in six days.
There was a need to cover 12 outs behind starter Michael Kopech, who pitched five scoreless innings and struck out six but got to 100 pitches while working through the Marlins' scoring threats. Gregory Santos worked 1 2/3 scoreless innings, followed by Reynaldo López for 1 1/3 innings before the ninth-inning rally.
“This is why I don't like to get too far ahead. This is a long season,” said Grifol before the tough setback. “And the most important thing in this season is health. I'm not gonna risk these guys' health and compromise our potential to have a good season just based on throwing three days in a row."
“As a group, everyone has been throwing pretty well,” Kelly said. “Lot of usage, maybe. A lot of guys were stepping up throwing more than they were kind of used to. So that was good.”
That one day at a time approach espoused frequently this season by Grifol will serve everyone well as the White Sox go for the series win Sunday. The offense, with a .225/.279/.356 slash line and 84 runs scored over the past 22 games, needs to step up. Kelly and Anderson simply can move on to the next challenge.
“It's either win or lose, and it was a loss,” Kelly said. “Just try to do as much work as we can. We have a great staff in there with the trainers who have kept a lot of arms on the field so far. Kind of grinding there and hopefully one of these games we'll explode and go from there."
“We’ve got to learn from it,” Vaughn said. “It happened. Tomorrow’s a new game.”