Painful to Admit

It pains me to admit that the White Sox won their fourth straight game last night, 4-3 over the Twins at Target Field, in large part due to the effort of two of my least favorite players, Michael A. Taylor and Jordan Leasure. But that’s what happened. With two on and two out in the top of the ninth, Brooks Baldwin blooped a broken-bat single to right, good for a run. That put runners on the corners, until Baldwin stole second with Taylor up. Twins’ reliever Justin Topa made Taylor look sad swinging at two straight sweepers that broke well out of the strike zone. Too bad for Topa he couldn’t do it a third time. Somehow, Taylor laid off the next two sweepers, both pretty much where the earlier two were. Then came sweeper #5, right over the plate. Taylor, who at that point was 0-for-3 on the night with two strikeouts, turned on the pitch, lining it down the left-field line, on the line in fact, a double plating two runs. Wait, there’s more. That was in the person of Leasure, who gave up a leadoff double to Byron Buxton followed by a walk to Trevor Larnach. Leasure induced the next two batters to hit shallow flyouts to left, requiring Andrew Benintendi to run in for the catch both times. That made it two out and two on for catcher Ryan Jeffers, 3-for-4 on the night with a run scored. Lo and behold, Jeffers grounded out to third. Sox win, Sox win. They hadn’t come back to win a game when trailing in the ninth since August 6, 2023, in Cleveland. That’s a span of 205 games. My problem with the two players who broke that streak is purely performance-related. Taylor is hitting .205 on the season and hadn‘t driven in a run since August 9. Leasure can either be very good or very bad out of the pen. Average it out, and he has a 4.08 ERA. At 34, Taylor may not be back for a second year with the Sox. He’s a plus-outfielder and a very good interview; I can still remember him from the 2019 postseason, when he helped the Nationals win their first and so far only World Series; Leasure is less articulate but just as sincere. So, hats off to both. Now, do it again.