Grand slam by Conor Gillaspie, two-run shot by Jordan Danks provide all the necessary runs despite a rocky effort by the pitching staff
The White Sox didn't hit a home run in either of the first two games of the Toronto series, but Conor Gillaspie and Jordan Danks made up for lost time.
Adam Dunn and Avisail Garcia gave Gillaspie a chance to break it open by drawing back-to-back walks with two outs to load the bases. Gillaspie held up his end by cranking a plate-splitting 2-2 fastball from Drew Hutchison over the wall in right for his first career grand slam. It was enough to force Moises Sierra to bring a reluctant smile to Gillaspie's face.
Then Gordon Beckham kept the inning alive with a single to left, and Danks took a high changeup to left center, giving the Sox a 6-1 lead.
And over the next eight innings, Scott Carroll and the White Sox pitching staff clung tenaciously to it.
Carroll spent the most afternoon in various degrees of trouble, from a spot to a heap. He walked the leadoff guy in the second and loaded the bases in the third, but he somehow escaped both unscathed.
He wasn't as lucky in the sixth. He walked ninth-hitting backup catcher Josh Thole to start the inning, and back-to-back singles by Jose Reyes and Melky Cabrera loaded the bases. Carroll almost mimized the damage by getting Jose Bautista to ground into a double play, but Edwin Encarnacion's towering fly plopped down in the White Sox bullpen to make it a 6-4 game.
The Blue Jays tacked one more run onto Carroll's line after he exited in the sixth, as Daniel Webb gave up a two-out single to drive in the leadoff double he inherited.
A Jordan Danks sac fly in the seventh gave the bullpen a little more of a cushion, and it came in handy for Jake Petricka, who loaded the bases with one out in the ninth. Alejandro De Aza caught Colby Rasmus' shallow fly and rushed the throw back in fast enough to freeze the runner at third (although he needed Gillaspie to save it from maybe going into the dugout with a diving catch on the mound), and Beckham smothered a weird one-hopper to end the game and take the series.
Bullet points:
*The Sox wound up on the wrong end of Rule 7.13 once again, when a review decided that Adrian Nieto blocked Jose Reyes from touching the plate on a throw from first to the plate. Reyes stepped on Nieto's ankle and not the plate, so home plate umpire Clint Fagan waited for Nieto to apply the tag behind the plate for the out. Nieto's leg was on top of the plate, but Reyes would've been safe easily had he made a basic foot-first slide instead. Instead, the Blue Jays had to litigate their way to a run.
*The White Sox defense turned three double plays, which helped the Sox pitch around 18 baserunners (the Sox only had 12 themselves).
*The Sox did run into two outs on the basepaths -- Beckham was thrown out trying to advance to second on Danks' second-inning sac fly, and a Toronto relay cut down Garcia at third when he got greedy after a double.
Record: 59-65 | Box score | Play-by-play | Highlights