The White Sox rallied for three runs in the bottom of the eighth inning on Tuesday to steal a win from the Texas Rangers.
Steal a win they certainly did.
Heading into the bottom of the eighth, a couple of long balls from Eloy Jiménez and Elvis Andrus helped the White Sox to four runs, and a couple of bad outings from Keynan Middleton and Aaron Bummer helped the Rangers to six.
Andrus singled home two runs to tie the game and ended up at second base to set the stage for a Zach Remillard go-ahead RBI. Remillard held up his end of the bargain with a single, but a fairly perfect throw from Travis Jankowski in left field nailed Andrus at the plate. After review, it was ruled that Rangers catcher Jonah Hein violated the home-plate collision rule, and the call was overturned.
Hey, it counts in the win column just as well as any other.
Rangers manager Bruce Bochy, who was ejected after the call was flipped, let it all out postgame.
“For that call to be made, I’m dumbfounded,” Bochy said. “It’s absolutely one of the worst calls I’ve ever seen and it was done by replay. I just don’t get it. I don’t care how many times they’ll try to explain it. You can’t do that in that situation. It’s a shame. It’s embarrassing, really.
“There was never any contact with the catcher. It was a sweep tag. I don’t get it. I really don’t. Again, I’m shocked.”
White Sox Manager Pedro Grifol more or less shrugged his shoulders about the ordeal.
“I really haven’t seen this review,” Grifol said. “The only thing I can say is that we challenged both. We challenged the play at the plate and blocking the plate. …
“… If you’re on the plate, I think they’re going to call you for a violation. However, I haven’t seen this particular play.”
The White Sox will try for a series win against the Rangers Wednesday night with Michael Kopech on the bump.
Hopefully they won’t need more movie magic to secure a win.
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