Andrus helps White Sox find 'relief' with walk-off single

CHICAGO -- The White Sox hit four home runs totaling 1,601 feet, according to Statcast, during their 5-4 victory over the Red Sox on Saturday evening at Guaranteed Rate Field.

But it was a two-out error committed by first baseman Triston Casas on pinch-hitter Gavin Sheets’ grounder, pinch-runner Zack Remillard’s stolen base and Elvis Andrus’ bloop single off Kenley Jansen with an exit velocity of 75.5 mph producing the walk-off victory and giving the White Sox (33-45) a chance to avoid a fifth straight series loss. It was the seventh walk-off by the White Sox this season, which is tops in the Majors.

Andrus picked up his first walk-off RBI since a single on June 11, 2021 (the A's beat the Royals 4-3 in that game).

“Unbelievable. Such a relief,” Andrus said. “It's kind of getting hot. You play such a long game, you just want to finish it. I just love that situation. I feel really good today. As soon as Remy stole that base at second I thought, 'OK, it's a little bit easier. Let's try to get a hit and finish this game.’ Just very grateful that I was able to [come] through."

“We battled the whole game, ups and downs,” White Sox first baseman Andrew Vaughn said. “Had some plays go our way and not go our way. Elvis with the big hit. It was awesome.”

Vaughn’s 12th homer followed one out after a team-high 19th from Luis Robert Jr. in the sixth inning off Boston reliever Josh Winckowski, erasing a 3-2 deficit coming from Casas’ two-run home run off Lance Lynn in the top of the frame. Winckowski had allowed three homers to the previous 172 batters he faced this season, but when factoring in Jake Burger’s 445-foot blast in the fifth, he yielded three in seven batters.

All four were of the solo variety, but they fulfilled manager Pedro Grifol’s plea of getting the ball in the air. Grifol went as far pregame as saying he hates ground balls, while explaining a wall of screens during batting practice stationed around the pitcher to get hitters to get the baseballs up.

“In this league, ground balls pretty much are outs, and that’s what we’re trying to avoid,” Grifol said. “I've said it over and over again -- we have capabilities of slugging on this club. So we’ll do whatever it takes, whether it’s the screens or whatever we can come up with, to elevate the baseball, which is what we’ve got to do.”

A next challenge for the White Sox is connecting with men on base, as 15 of their last 16 homers have been solo. It might be tough to do with the lowest on-base percentage in baseball at .292.

“We’ve been working really hard on it, trying to get the ball off the ground,” Vaughn said. “We definitely need to string more hits together. It’s a part of baseball. You have to score runs a bunch of ways.

“Homers are cool. Homers are fun, and they score runs. It gets everybody fired up and keeps us going.”

Saturday’s victory avoided the White Sox equaling a season-worst 14 games under .500, although the situation looked a little dicey in the top of the ninth. Jarren Duran’s two-out single past second baseman Tim Anderson was followed by his third stolen base of the game, a Kendall Graveman wild pitch and Justin Turner’s game-tying single to center.

Sounds a great deal like the White Sox ninth inning. Graveman struck out Adam Duvall swinging with the bases loaded, giving Andrus a chance for his heroics against one of the game’s all-time great closers.

“I feel a lot better, a lot more comfortable, because I faced him yesterday and I kind of knew how he was going to approach me,” Andrus said. “I was trying to stay through the middle, don't try to do too much. With guys like him, you cannot try to do too much. His pitches move so late, so for me that was my plan and I was very happy that it went through."

“You have four solos: They got the ability to drive the ball,” said Lynn of the offense. “They are doing their job every day. They are coming in and preparing. Hopefully it turns the corner for them. Pitching staff has to try to put up zeros and that’s all we can ask ourselves to do and not try to do too much. Next thing you know hopefully the offense clicks too and we are right where we want to be."