Andrew Vaughn wanted to put a good swing on a good pitch in his ninth-inning at-bat against New York Yankees closer Aroldis Chapman.
“Try to get on base anyway, hit by pitch, walk, anything,” Vaughn said.
Anything turned out to be a game-tying solo home run.
Vaughn gave the Chicago White Sox new life. But Liam Hendriks walked Aaron Judge with the bases loaded in the bottom of the ninth, bringing home Clint Frazier with the winning run in the New York Yankees’ 5-4 victory over the Sox on Sunday at Yankee Stadium.
The Sox rallied from deficits of 3-0 and 4-2. But Frazier singled against Sox reliever Aaron Bummer to lead off the bottom of the ninth and stole second. With one out, the Sox intentionally walked DJ LeMahieu, and Tyler Wade reached on a broken-bat infield hit.
Hendriks entered to face Judge, who drew a five-pitch walk. Frazier scored as the Yankees completed a three-game sweep.
“The effort that we’ve had for April and May, we didn’t change anything and that’s encouraging,” Sox manager Tony La Russa said of the series. “Didn’t get overawed by the moment. That’s the point, we were ourselves. Had a real chance to win two. We should have won one, at least, if there was justice, but their team did better than we did three times.”
La Russa said he started the ninth with Bummer because he liked the matchups and “you may need Liam for more.”
“Bummer did a nice job, he had stuff working and didn’t catch a break,” La Russa said. “Liam was trying the best he could, and that’s all you can ask him.”
After scoring just once in the first two games, the Sox used the long ball for their offense Sunday with home runs by José Abreu, Yasmani Grandal and Vaughn.
The Sox fell behind quickly thanks to a two-out, two-run single by Gleyber Torres in the first. Torres had a monster weekend, going 8-for-12 with one home run and eight RBIs in the three games. He went 3-for-4 with two RBIs Sunday.
Sox starter Dallas Keuchel exited after walking Judge to load the bases with no outs in the fifth. Evan Marshall got Gio Urshela to ground into a double play. A run scored making it 3-0, but Marshall struck out Torres to end the threat.
Keuchel allowed three runs (one earned) on six hits with four strikeouts and two walks in four-plus innings.
“This was a very weird outing for myself,” Keuchel said. “Obviously you see the 100 pitches and four-plus innings. Lot of deep counts. Obviously I’m not trying to do that, but that’s what they make you do. They were real aggressive the first two games and then really made me try to corral the zone. Fortunately enough I was able to make some key pitches when I needed to.
“I’m just trying to keep us in the ballgame. I knew if I kept us at a two- or three-run deficit, we had a chance to come back. Obviously we did. Just didn’t have enough.”
Abreu hit a two-run home run in the sixth to get the Sox within 3-2. But the Yankees answered with a run in their half of the sixth when the Sox couldn’t complete a double play. Shortstop Tim Anderson was charged with a throwing error while trying to get Brett Gardner at first.
Grandal made it a one-run game again with a solo home run in the seventh.
Vaughn batted for Adam Eaton with one out in the ninth. He hit Chapman’s 1-0 sinker to right-center for his third homer of the season to tie the score at 4.
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“He’s got one of, if not the best fastballs in the game,” Vaughn said. “It gets on you and you’ve got to get on top of it and put a good swing on it. It ended up being a good situation for us.”
But the Sox couldn’t complete the comeback and were swept for the first time all season.
“A lot of us were looking forward to this weekend and you always want to win ballgames, but this was fun,” Keuchel said. “We had two out of three really good ballgames and down to the wire, just things didn’t go our way. But that’s what you want in the regular season.
“That’s a quality ballclub and one I like to face. They give you their best shot every time out. We’re going to take some experience with us. We got swept but we were right in the thick of things there for pretty much the whole weekend.”
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