As new Chicago White Sox reliever Craig Kimbrel made the unfamiliar trek from the visitors bullpen Friday at Wrigley Field in Game 1 of the City Series, hearty applause from Cubs fans greeted him in his return.
Fifteen minutes later, a mix of cheers from Cubs fans and boos from Sox fans among the crowd of 39,539 enveloped Kimbrel as he walked off the mound with a blown save, pulled in the middle of the eighth. Moments earlier, Cubs shortstop Andrew Romine hit a game-tying, three-run homer off Kimbrel.
The home run was as stunning as unlikely: Before that fateful pitch, Kimbrel had allowed only two earned runs in 39? innings this season with nearly two years passing since he last surrendered three runs in an outing.
Meanwhile, for the journeyman Romine, the homer was his first in the majors in more than four years.
“I mean, I’m no dummy, I know who’s on the mound when I’m coming up in that situation,” Romine said. “So I was really just trying to trying to find a hole somewhere, trying to get a pitch that I could do something with. … I know he throws hard so I was trying to get on that fastball if he came inside, which he did, and I managed to get the barrel on it.
“I have no idea how things work or why things work in baseball, our family’s been around it a long time, and there’s no rhyme or reason to anything, but everybody’s human.”
The Sox offense, though, came alive in the 10th after Liam Hendriks entered and stranded an inherited base runner in the eighth and threw a scoreless ninth to force extra innings. Brian Goodwin’s two-run homer off right-hander Manuel Rodríguez was part of a four-run inning that sent nine Sox batters to plate en route to an 8-6 win.
“I’m just blessed,” Goodwin said. “I’m blessed, I’m blessed, blessed to be in an opportunity, blessed to be on a good team, a fighting team, a scrappy team, one that don’t give up.”
The Sox’s ability to score multiple runs in an inning was welcomed given their offensive inconsistencies since the All-Star break. The eight runs were their most in a win since July 20. They came into the series averaging 3.85 runs in that stretch, which ranks in the bottom third of the majors, and an 88 wRC+ (26th).
“We haven’t had our offensive capabilities up to what we believe in the last little bit, but having a game like that is huge for us,” Hendriks said. “All of the sudden you get that thing going and you get the blood flowing and the juices flowing and all of the sudden when it rains it pours. If we can take that through the rest of the season and get everything going at the same time, because we’ve been pitching well and I know our bats are going to come around. Hopefully everything grooves right around the right time.”
Frank Schwindel hit a two-run homer to lead off the bottom of the 10th, but Garrett Crochet retired the next three Cubs hitters to earn the save. Rodríguez’s performance in the top of the inning put the Cubs in a tough spot. That’s part of the growing pains, though, for an inexperienced reliever whom the Cubs envision being an important piece of the bullpen in the future. Manager David Ross wasn’t sure from his angle in the dugout what could be attributed to his rough outing — four runs, one earned, three hits, no batters retired — and needed to look at video.
“They were on a lot of his stuff,” Ross said.
Romine’s home run was only the fourth three-run homer Kimbrel has given up in his career (625 appearances, 48 homers allowed).
“The last one, (Kimbrel) said he tugged it a little bit, he was trying to go away, and he got it where the guy could hit it out of the park,” Sox manager Tony La Russa said. “But it happens when you would think that a save is going to be routine. It’s never routine. And the way we’re playing it now, the eighth inning is like the ninth, right? He’s got to get three outs. It just shows you how difficult that job is.”
The Sox were in control for most of the game. For six-plus innings, the Cubs had no answer for right-hander Lance Lynn.
Lynn kept throwing up zeros into the seventh when the Cubs finally brought home a run with Sox reliever Michael Kopech on the mound. It was the only run charged to Lynn while the offense produced two multirun innings to build a 4-1 lead. Lynn struck out eight and walked two, lowering his ERA to 2.04 in the process.
“It went all right — six innings, one earned run,” Lynn said. “But (expletive) plate appearances. I left the bases loaded twice. So (expletive) day, really.”
Cubs right-hander Kyle Hendricks dealt with traffic on the bases for most of the game. He allowed seven hits and walked three, two intentionally, in six innings. His seven strikeouts, one shy of his season high, helped minimize the damage. Hendricks felt he threw well, attributing most of the Sox’s hits to finding holes. He has not lost a game in his last 16 starts, the longest stretch by a Cubs starter since Jake Arrieta went a franchise-record 24 straight games without a loss from July 30, 2015-May 31, 2016.
Hendricks’ 17 quality starts are second most in the majors behind the Los Angeles Dodgers’ Walker Buehler (19).
“We saw the swings we were getting and the results, and we pretty much wanted to stay right there (with the game plan),” Hendricks said. “So you’ve just got to tip your hat.”
The Sox took advantage of back-to-back singles to open the fourth, taking the lead on Andrew Vaughn’s RBI single. Two batters later, Seby Zavala connected for a two-out single for a 2-0 lead.
David Bote came off the bench in the seventh to help the Cubs cut the lead to 2-1 with his pinch-hit sacrifice fly. Romine’s single to start the inning ended Lynn’s day.
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