Friday’s Chicago White Sox-Tampa Bay Rays game had all the ingredients of a postseason classic.
Only in August.
Two first-place teams coming through with big hits late, star pitchers working out of jams and managerial moves that could fill up hours of postgame chatter.
In the end, Tim Anderson delivered to lead the Sox to a 7-5 victory in 11 innings in front of 13,178 fans at Tropicana Field.
Anderson hit a tying solo home run in the ninth, then put the Sox ahead with an RBI single in the 11th and also scored in the inning.
“The game’s never over,” Anderson said. “We always play to the end. That’s what we were able to do tonight. And we came out on top.”
Anderson went 3-for-6 with two RBIs and four runs.
“The heart of the club is true championship quality, and it starts with the shortstop,” Sox manager Tony La Russa said. “What he did tonight was all you need to know about the champion he is and should be at some point, hopefully soon.”
Sox starter Lucas Giolito allowed two runs on three hits and struck out eight strikeouts while issuing no walks in seven stellar innings. He left with a 4-2 lead, but the Rays rallied for three in the eighth.
Craig Kimbrel walked the leadoff batter but retired the next two before being replaced by Aaron Bummer with a runner on third. La Russa said he sent the wrong message to Kimbrel.
“It’s one of those things where I went in thinking it had been three days since Craig had pitched,” La Russa said. “It had been one of those days he took the trip for personal reasons. All of a sudden, you throw him in the middle of that. You want to try to create fair situations.
“I kept thinking as he walks the first guy and as he went on, this is just not fair. I take him out after he strikes out (Mike) Zunino (for the second out) and I think it was the totally wrong message to send him. To think that I and we don’t have confidence. … I was just trying to reason through it that it was not fair for it to develop that way. I thought he shouldn’t face that guy.
“But when I look back it, thinking about the potential Hall of Fame closer that he is, I sent him the wrong message. If it had worked out, I still send him a bad message. And that’s not what I think of him. He’s certainly a key part of what we have going forward. Win the game and try to prepare the damage to Craig.”
Wander Franco cut the deficit to one with an infield hit. The Sox intentionally walked Nelson Cruz to load the bases, then Austin Meadows hit a two-run single, giving the Rays a 5-4 lead.
“I thought Bummer against the left-hander was better than Bummer against Cruz,” La Russa said. “Didn’t work out.”
Anderson — the star of the Field of Dreams game last week with the game-winning home run in Dyersville, Iowa — was there to pick the team up in the ninth, leading off with a home run to center on a 3-2 slider by JT Chargois to tie the game at 5.
“He’s so clutch,” Giolito said, “the heart and soul of our team, as we’ve said so many times.”
Sox closer Liam Hendriks worked out of trouble in the 10th. The Rays had a runner on third with one out, but Hendriks struck out Franco and got Cruz to pop out to first baseman José Abreu.
Anderson led off the 11th and singled to right. Zack Collins, who began the inning on second as the automatic runner, scored to give the Sox the lead.
“I didn’t miss on any of those pitches,” Anderson said of the at-bats in the ninth and 11th. “Took both of those at-bats to 3-2 and I was able to lay off some tough pitches and hit some tough pitches as well, come up huge for the team.”
Anderson scored on an Abreu groundout to extend the lead to 7-5, and Ryan Tepera struck out the final two batters of the game to cap one of the more memorable wins of the season.
“Just shows our resilience,” Giolito said. “Even the games that we’ve lost over the last couple weeks, we’re always in them. This is just another one where we stayed in it, we stayed confident and we were able to take the ‘W.’ “
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