Heading into the week Brain Goodwin had just five home runs. All of them had come in the second inning. He seems to develop the clutch gene. On Sunday he launched a walk-off home run against the Cleveland Indians. On Friday, he played hero once again this time against the Chicago Cubs. Goodwin hit a leadoff two-run homer in the 10th inning in an 8-6 victory. It was the first two-run homer to lead off an inning in White Sox history.
The game was setting up to be an easy finish to a great day at Wrigley Field. It was round one of the Crosstown rivalry between the Cubs and White Sox in front of a festive crowd of 39,539 fans.
Lance Lynn threw six great innings, striking out eight and only allowing one run. Cesar Hernandez hit his first home run in a White Sox uniform to give the South Siders a 4-1 cushion. The newest member of the White Sox, Craig Kimbrel was given the ball in the eighth inning and the game looked like it was as good as over. Kimbrel has been virtually unhittable all season. Heading into Friday’s game Kimbrel had only allowed two earned runs and boasted a 0.47 ERA.
But baseball is a funny game. Kimbrel yielded four hits against his former team. One of those hits included a game-tying three-run homer off the bat of Andrew Romine. Romine had not hit an MLB home run since 2017. It was just the second time in Kimbrel’s career that he has allowed four hits. Tony La Russa spoke about the pitch that Romine connected with after the game.
Rewrite that lede real quick.#BoomGoesTheStoryline pic.twitter.com/DCHkJpGBYX
— Chicago Cubs (@Cubs) August 6, 2021
“He was trying to go away, and he got it where the guy could hit it out of the park,” Tony La Russa told reporters. “But it happens when you would think that a save is going to be routine. It’s never routine.”
This forced Liam Hendriks to escape the eighth inning for Kimbrel. It wasn’t easy but after a ten-pitch at-bat, the Aussie got Sergio Alcántra to go down swinging.
“I tend to throw a little bit more adrenaline into certain at-bats at times, depending on what the situation is. Having someone else’s runner on base is a big motivation to try and get a guy out,” Liam Hendriks said. “I was looking for any way to get out of it, and fortunately I was able to get a swing and miss.”
Coming in hot. pic.twitter.com/V7zxh8AKyl
— Chicago White Sox (@whitesox) August 6, 2021
Former White Sox pitcher Codi Heuer threw a scoreless ninth inning for the Cubs. This gave the Northsiders a chance to walk it off in the bottom of the ninth. But Henriks rose to the occasion once again. He struck out Wilson Contreras, Patrick Wisdom, and Ian Happ stranding Matt Duffey on second base.
That is when Brian Goodwin went to work. After being subbed in for Eloy Jimenez in the sixth inning he delivered the biggest at-bat of the game. He stroked the ball 382 feet to the opposite field to give the White Sox the lead.
That boy is Good.@thatBoy_GOOD1 | @NBCSChicago pic.twitter.com/03lGBlbke1
— Chicago White Sox (@whitesox) August 6, 2021
“Brian has been great for us since he’s been here and he’s capable of a lot of things,” Lance Lynn said after the game. “We’ve got a deep roster here. We like what we have.”
Goodwin was not the only role player to come up with a huge at-bat. Gavin Sheets also hit an RBI single in extras. A fixture of the team, Tim Anderson also chipped in a base hit that plated Yoan Moncada. These RBIs proved to be critical. In the bottom half of the tenth Frank Schwindel homered to cut the Cubs deficit back down to two. The wild affair ended when Garrett Crochet retired fellow pitcher Zach Davies to end the game.
It wasn’t the White Sox prettiest victory. In fact, at times it was downright ugly. But it goes down in the win column none the less and that’s all that matters.
