Watson Walks It Off in the 10th, Cleveland Survives Chicago's Ninth-Inning Surge

Kahlil Watson singled to left in the tenth inning to score Petey Halpin and give Cleveland a 4-3 win over Chicago on June 24. The White Sox had just erased a two-run deficit with back-to-back home runs in the ninth — and still lost.

Tanner Bibee set the tone early, spinning six innings of three-hit, zero-run ball with three strikeouts and one walk. Cleveland's offense did its part in the sixth, when Watson singled to left, scoring Halpin and Rocchio to make it 2-0 — and Chicago's left fielder Antonacci compounded the damage with a throwing error that allowed Manzardo to reach third safely. That two-run cushion felt comfortable with Bibee dealing, and the Guardians extended it to 3-1 in the eighth when a bases-loaded walk scored Halpin. Three runs, a dominant starter, and six outs to go. Seemed straightforward enough.

It wasn't. The ninth inning is where this game got genuinely strange. Braden Montgomery launched a 411-foot home run to center to cut it to 3-2. Then, two batters later, Randal Grichuk went 416 feet to left center to tie it at 3-3. Just like that, Chicago's win probability swung from 3% to 53% — a 49-point shift on two swings. Montgomery finished 1-for-4 with 2 RBI and a run scored; Grichuk went 1-for-2 with a homer, an RBI, and a run. The White Sox, who activated Kyle Teel from the 60-day injured list earlier this week, got a run out of him in the seventh via Montgomery's sacrifice fly. It looked, for a moment, like this was going to be a feel-good story for a Chicago team that has been one of the more surprising clubs in baseball this season.

But Watson had other ideas. In the tenth, he singled to left again — his second hit of the night — to score Halpin, who crossed the plate three times in this game, and Cleveland walked away with a 4-3 final. Watson finished 2-for-4 with 3 RBI, and the story of the night was really his bookend singles: one to blow the game open in the sixth, one to end it in the tenth. On the mound, Joe Rock threw two innings of one-hit ball for Chicago but issued three walks, and Brandon Eisert was sharp in 1.2 innings — no hits, no walks, three strikeouts — though it ultimately didn't matter. Cleveland's bullpen held when it had to. Chicago's didn't. That ninth-inning explosion looks like the kind of sequence that will sting for a while: two massive home runs, a tied game, and then nothing to show for it.