Crowdsourcing

A crowd of 40,288 White Sox fans endured the costs of playoff baseball to fill Guaranteed Rate Whatever last night; the mostly white fans wore black and saved the irony for another time. They brought along the electricity that runs through all things South Side. The fans willed their heroes to score in the first, then refused to be silenced when Houston scored five unanswered runs over the next two innings. They roared after Yasmani Grandal hit a two-run homer in the bottom of the third, only to roar louder when Leury Garcia launched a 436-foot shot to dead center field, good for three runs and a 6-5 White Sox lead. The Astros tied the game in the fourth, not that the fans stopped cheering. Their heroes were about to score three more runs in the bottom frame before doing something as long overdue as the clutch hitting was—Ryan Tepera, Aaron Bummer, Craig Kimbrel and Liam Hendriks came out of the bullpen to shut the opposition down without so much as a hit or a walk. Final score, Sox 12 Astros 6. So, weather permitting, the home team will try to make it two in a row. With fans behind them, they have a chance. This is what the South Side can do, when people call it home.