It was back to baseball Sunday for the Chicago White Sox and Cleveland Guardians.
Only a few hours after a lengthy brawl in the sixth inning of Saturday’s game, the teams returned to Progressive Field to conclude the weekend — and season — series.
The Sox staged a ninth-inning rally, scoring three runs with two outs for a 5-3 victory in front of 27,305.
The Sox benefited from two throwing errors by third baseman Brayan Rocchio, the second of which brought home the tying run. Elvis Andrus followed with a two-run single up the middle against Emmanuel Clase, one of the six people ejected Saturday.
“A lot of guts. They fought to the very end,” Sox manager Pedro Grifol said. “They ran hard, they played hard. Overall it was a great team win.”
Andrus had a big day with three hits and a nice play at shortstop in the ninth on a grounder by Oscar Gonzalez. The Sox got six solid innings from Jesse Scholtens (two earned runs on six hits) to take two of three in the series.
Sammy Peralta earned his first major-league win and Jimmy Lambert got his first major-league save.
“Obviously what happened yesterday happened,” Scholtens said. “I went out there knowing everybody in this clubhouse is going to have each other’s back no matter what happens.
“We kind of united around that. You saw the fight (from the team Sunday). It reassures us, ‘Hey, we’re all in this together.’”
There were no extracurricular activities like the ones on Saturday featuring Sox shortstop Tim Anderson and Guardians third baseman José Ramírez.
Ramírez doubled to right with one out in the sixth Saturday and made a headfirst slide into second, where Anderson applied the tag. Words were exchanged before Anderson and Ramírez squared off near second base and traded swings.
Ramírez landed a right haymaker that leveled Anderson. The benches cleared. It took 14 minutes to restore order.
Anderson was not in the lineup Sunday; Grifol said it was a scheduled day off. Ramírez was the Guardians designated hitter.
The theme Sunday morning for the Sox was pushing ahead.
“We’ve got to move forward from it,” said first baseman Andrew Vaughn, one of the players restraining Anderson during a portion of the scuffle. “It’s baseball. Guys have high tempers sometimes, both sides, and things got a little heated. Maybe got away from us a little bit.”
Grifol called Saturday’s 7-4 victory “an emotional win.”
“Everybody was out there fighting for each other and protecting each other,” he said before Sunday’s game. “It was a much-needed win. Could it have been the best win of the year? Possibly. They’re all really good, no matter what. But there were a lot of emotions. If you’re basing it on emotions, yeah, it was the best win of the year.”
Injury-wise, Grifol said the Sox came out of the brawl “in a good spot.” He said Anderson, who was unavailable to the media before and after Sunday’s game, was “doing good.”
“He was going to get a day off today like (Andrew Benintendi) and Vaughn,” Grifol said. “It just so happens it might not look that way, but it is what it is.”
Grifol did not want to discuss any of the particulars from Saturday’s incident.
“I’ve had my conversations with Tim, but I’m not going to get into anything that happened last night,” he said. “I’ll let MLB handle all that stuff. I’m not going to talk about the fight.”
Everyone is awaiting word from Major League Baseball on possible discipline for anyone involved. In addition to Anderson, Ramírez and Clase, Guardians manager Terry Francona and third-base coach Mike Sarbaugh and Grifol were ejected.
“Until they come in and tell us who’s getting suspended — if somebody’s getting suspended — it’s business as usual,” Grifol said. “They’ve got some things they have to take care of, videos they have to look at and people they have to talk to. They’ll come up with the right thing.”
Seby Zavala placed on IL
Before Sunday’s game, the Sox placed catcher Seby Zavala on the 10-day injured list with a strained left oblique and recalled catcher Carlos Pérez from Triple-A Charlotte.
“We don’t think it’s too serious, but it’s definitely enough to bring Carlos in,” Grifol said. “Hopefully it starts getting better quickly and we can get him back.
“We’re going to give (Pérez) some (playing) time. As an organization we need to see him play. He can swing the bat a little bit, he did some good things behind the plate. We’re going to test him a little bit and see what he’s got.”
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