Sure, I could break down this game by discussing who played well and who did not. We know the likes of Phil Humber and Paul Konerko did not perform well in important roles/situations, and we also know guys like Alex Rios, Alexei Ramirez, and Alejandro De Aza did have great games.
Every day we discuss who did well and who did not, so for the first White Sox walk-off home run of the season, I’ll give you my two takeaways from the game … but this time a little outside the box: Humber beating Greinke & seeing the smiles on all the players’ faces.

Greinke Goes Down

Every day it’s easy to look at the match-ups on paper and determine which team has certain advantages. On Friday, it seemed the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim would have most of them against the south siders.
For one, the pitching matchup was the potentially dominant Zack Greinke, making his second start for the Angels and his second at U.S. Cellular Field this season (first was 9 IP 0 ER), against the woefully inconsistent 6-man, if you will, for the Sox Phil Humber. Since Humber had been good in two of three starts since coming back from the DL (at Boston, at Texas), there was hope that we’d start to see some consistency out of him. Unfortunately, that wasn’t the case.
In the early goings, overall, I thought Humber had his fastball command. It seemed like 9 out 0f 10 were either good strikes sinking back over the outside corner (to righties) or just missing in safe places. But even when that was the case, he scattered several mistake pitches, and the loaded LA lineup took advantage of them. Throughout the first 3 innings, the Angels scored 1, 2, and 2 runs respectively, which took the lead away from the Sox, who were leading behind A.J. Pierzynski’s 1st inning 3-run home run, and gave it back to the Halos by the score 5-4.

I think the best way to describe Humber’s night is untimely. Most of his runs came after letting up 2-out, nobody on base runners. Luckily he did calm down a bit, and left after 5.2 innings of 6-run ball with his Sox then trailing 6-4.
The Sox had been seeing Greinke well all night, and continued to have success as they tied the game up after 7 innings, 6-6. At that point, the game was fully in the hands of the bullpens.
After 2.5 scoreless innings from there on out, the Sox came to bat in the bottom of the 10th and as they like to say, the rest … is history.

***

“It’s All Good!”

After an Adam Dunn infield single (yep, LOL), Jordan Danks came in to run and stole 2nd base, giving Alex Rios, the current hitter, a runner in scoring position. Even though that technically didn’t matter when it was all said and done, having Danks on 2nd base was huge because all of the sudden Rios only had to have the mindset “hit it hard & find a hole.”
As we all know, he did indeed hit it hard, as he launched his 2nd home run of the night over the center field wall out of the reach of Mike Trout to give the Sox an 8-6 walk-off win. On a Friday night with a good crowd in attendance, after starting the 2nd half with a stretch of 16 of 19 on the road, and all on Elvis Night at “The Cell,” that moment was special.
Seeing all the players jump out of the dugout with huge smiles on their faces, greeting the even more giddy-Rios at home plate is exactly what the team and fans needed to see. It’s moments like those that truly give a ball club potential momentum and certainly keep fans coming back for more. Without getting ahead of myself, I think it’s time to compare this game to ’05.
Given the pure bliss and excitement we saw in the ball park after Rios’ walk-off, I couldn’t help to think of Joe Crede’s walk-off job beating the surging Indians in September of 2005. Cleveland was gaining ground quickly on our Sox and the team needed something to push them forward through that tough stretch. Even though this game wasn’t at all a must-win and wasn’t against a surging rival, the happiness you saw at U.S. Cellular Field had to remind you of that night in ’05.

After it was all said and done, the bullpen was phenomenal, and got the Sox a win as Humber downed Greinke in a lopsided upset. Okay, I know Humber didn’t technically win and Greinke didn’t technically lose, but going in with such a disadvantage certainly made it feel like some sort of upset was achieved.
All year we’ve been saying that Robin Ventura’s team has a ton of fight in them, and Friday night was a great testament to that. The bullpen threw each pitch with importance and was great. The offense never felt down and out, they just kept scratchin’ away until they found a way.
When you have a team that plays with that style and mindset, good things can happen on any given night.
Enjoy this one, boys … you deserve it.