Derek Hill’s pinch-hit homer bails out White Sox in 6-5 win over Royals

Finally coming alive in the fifth, the South Side bats posted a five-spot, first tying, then taking a three-run advantage to turn the game on its head. Drew Romo cut the lead in half after mashing his fourth home run since being called up, possessing a 1.092 OPS while holding a batting average below .200 (.192). Romo struck out for the rest of his at-bats, so perhaps the average makes sense.

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To keep the inning rolling, Antonacci drove a double out to center to pick up his second hit and put the game-tying run into scoring position. As he already had a hot bat, Vargas was set up perfectly to drive him in with a base hit and tie the game up at two. Vargas has driven in at least one run in his last three games and has seven RBIs this month after accumulating nine in the entire month of April.

Mune struck out to bring Colson up, who put together a much better at-bat than earlier in the game and worked a base on balls to put another runner on. That brought up Chase Meidroth, who blasted his third bomb of the season into the White Sox bullpen, putting the Good Guys up, 5-2.

So quickly after taking the lead, the White Sox imploded once Fedde was replaced by lefthander Tyler Schweitzer, who only made it through one out before giving up two runs to bring the Royals back within one, 5-4. In the blink of an eye, the win fizzled out before Fedde’s eyes. Will Venable decided to go with Grant Taylor a bit earlier than expected. Unfortunately, the one hit he allowed in the final 2/3 of the inning was the tying run, also charged to Schweitzer, before striking out Witt to end the inning.

Taylor made it a nail-biter returning in the seventh, giving up back-to-back singles to start the frame, but struck out both Carter Jensen and Jac Caglianone before forcing a ground out to end the inning. Despite having to clean up Schweitzer’s mess, he was still assigned a blown save. Seranthony Domínguez is typically more of a ninth-inning kind of guy, but he was turned to in the eighth as the Good Guys worked to keep the game tied at five. Three-up, three-down for Domínguez was exactly what the Sox needed to get the bat back in their hands.

Even if you were given 10 guesses to predict who won the game for Chicago, you probably wouldn’t get it because it was a pinch-hit, go-ahead blast from Derek Hill to put the South Siders up one, 6-5. The best part was that the pitch was below the strike zone, but Hill muscled it enough to clear the left-center wall and put the ball into the bleachers.

Out for the ninth was southpaw Bryan Hudson, who has been nothing short of excellent in his 21 appearances (20 innings) this season. Hudson wrangled the Royals for a 1-2-3 inning to earn his second save of the year, but not without a little more help from Derek Hill, who made a diving catch out in right to rob a clutch hit from Witt. Hudson has maintained a sub-1.00 ERA (0.90), and tonight’s save also secured the W for Seranthony.

Wednesday is Noah Schultz Day. The lefty will be going against righthander Seth Lugo. We’ve got another night game tomorrow, so join us at the same time and place — 6:40 p.m. CT — to watch some quality baseball and hopefully get the club to .500.

Who was the MVP for the White Sox?

Sam Antonacci: 2-for-4, R, 2B, SB

Miguel Vargas: 2-for-3, R, game-tying RBI in 5th, BB,

Chase Meidroth: 1-for-4, R, 3 RBI, 2 K, go-ahead 3R HR in 5th

Derek Hill: 1-for-1, pinch-hit go-ahead HR in 8th, diving catch in 9th

Seranthony Domínguez: 1 IP, 0 H, WIN (3-3)

Bryan Hudson: 1 IP, 0 H, Save (2)

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Who struggled the most for the White Sox?

Munetaka Murakami: 0-for-3, BB, 3 K

Jarred Kelenic: 0-for-3, 2 K

Tristan Peters: 0-for-3

Erick Fedde: 5 IP, 6 H, 2 R, BB, 2 K, 2 HR

Tyler Schweitzer: 1/3 IP, 2 H, 3 R, BB, H

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