BOSTON — The Chicago White Sox were one strike away from salvaging the finale of their three-game series against the Boston Red Sox.
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But Wilyer Abreu’s RBI single with two outs in the ninth forced extra innings, and the game went on and on.
It was decided in the 13th inning on a Caleb Durbin walk-off RBI single, which gave the Red Sox a 12-11 victory Thursday in front of a sellout crowd of 37,082 at Fenway Park.
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“Good battle there,” White Sox manager Will Venable said. “Some things that we can control that you wish you had back there. But got to give the Red Sox credit too.
“It’s just the hardest team to beat right now. We’ve seen it firsthand now, obviously the record against them speaks for itself. Just couldn’t find a way to beat them.”
The White Sox were swept in the three-game series and lost all six in the season series — the first time in franchise history they went winless in the season series against the Red Sox.
Thursday was the toughest defeat of this year’s matchups. Chase Meidroth hit two two-run home runs in the loss.
“That’s a playoff atmosphere, but it sucks that we didn’t get the job done,” Meidroth said.
The red-hot Red Sox won their eighth straight and 10th of 11 and improved to 31-5 in their last 36 games.
The White Sox received more bad news when catcher Joey Bart, acquired Monday at the trade deadline, exited with a fifth metacarpal fracture in his left hand after being hit by a pitch in the seventh inning.
“We’ll continue to check it out, but it’s a fracture,” Venable said. “Obviously it’ll be an IL (stint), and we’ll figure out what we’re going to do, see what the timeline is with him as we continue to evaluate.”
Despite the loss, the White Sox (59-55) remained three games ahead of the second-place Cleveland Guardians (57-59) in the American League Central. The Minnesota Twins (57-59) also are tied for second. The Sox begin a three-game series with the Guardians on Friday at Rate Field.
Early Thursday, it looked as if they would be going into that series with some momentum.
The White Sox jumped ahead with four runs in the third inning. Meidroth homered, giving the White Sox their first lead against the Red Sox all season. Colson Montgomery drove in a run on a single. A second run scored on the play on a throwing error.
The Red Sox cut the lead in half with Connor Wong’s two-run home run in the bottom of the third.
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Sam Antonacci, who received a smattering of boos in response to a first-inning grounder Wednesday that sparked an online debate as to whether his left elbow got a little too close to Willson Contreras while running to first base, got a run back in the fourth with a pinch-hit RBI double to right field. Brenton Doyle scored on the hit, giving the Sox a 5-2 lead.
But the Red Sox came right back with three runs in the bottom of the fourth to tie the score.
Starter Luis Castillo allowed five runs on six hits with five strikeouts and one walk in four innings in his White Sox debut after being acquired from the Seattle Mariners.
“I just tip my cap to the hitters, they did their job and you have to recognize that too,” Castillo said through an interpreter.
The White Sox regained the lead in the fifth. With runners on the corners and two outs, Braden Montgomery hit a high chopper back to the mound. Justin Slaten threw wildly to first, and two runs scored on the play, giving the White Sox a 7-5 lead.
The Red Sox got within a run on a Masataka Yoshida RBI double. He advanced to third on a wild pitch but was stranded when Meidroth caught a Jarren Duran liner with an exit velocity of 106.6 mph for the second out and Antonacci tracked down Anthony Seigler’s fly ball to left.
White Sox reliever Grant Taylor, who got the final out of the sixth, worked out of a jam in the seventh by striking out Durbin to leave runners on the corners. Taylor allowed one hit in two scoreless innings.
In the eighth, Duran was thrown out trying to advance to third on a ball in the dirt to end the inning.
The Red Sox tied it on Abreu’s two-out single in the ninth.
Meidroth hit his second two-run blast of the game in the 10th, this time off Aroldis Chapman.
“He got ahead of me early,” Meidroth said. “I was trying to see it deep. I got a good pitch to hit. He’s a hell of an arm, and when you get a good pitch off a guy like that you have to put it forward.”
The Red Sox scored twice in the bottom of the inning, tying it at 9.
Both teams scored once in the 11th and 12th innings and missed some key opportunities to add on. The Red Sox were limited to one run in the bottom of the 11th despite loading the bases with one out. And Braden Montgomery was thrown out at the plate in the 12th.
The White Sox failed to score in the top of the 13th. Durbin came through for the Red Sox with the one-out game-winning hit, ending the 4-hour, 23-minute contest.
“It’s a tough series, no doubt about it,” Venable said. “Especially with a chance to win tonight and really end things on a good note here on a tough road trip against some really good teams (in Tampa Bay and Boston).
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“There’s a bunch of stuff that, obviously, we’ve got to do a better job of. Go to the drawing board, do whatever we can to continue to get better and really move on from this one.”