Benintendi's Seventh-Inning Single Lifts White Sox Past Tigers, 4-3

Andrew Benintendi singled to left in the seventh inning to score Randal Grichuk and give Chicago the lead for good, as the White Sox escaped Detroit with a 4-3 win on August 15. The story of the night was a game that changed hands three times and never felt settled until the final out.

Chicago struck first in the opening inning when Braden Montgomery singled to right, scoring Antonacci and putting the White Sox up 1-0. Detroit answered immediately — Valencia singled to center, scoring Lee to knot it at 1-1 before the first inning was done. The game stayed level until the third, when Colson Montgomery's double to right scored both Braden Montgomery and Benintendi to push Chicago ahead 3-1. That two-run double was the single biggest momentum shift of the night: Detroit's win probability swung from 62% to 40% on that one swing, a 21-point crater that looked like it might decide things early.

It didn't. Valencia answered with a solo home run to left in the fourth — 358 feet — to cut it to 3-2, and Torres followed in the fifth with a double to center that scored Julks and tied the game at 3-3. Valencia finished 2-for-4 with a homer and 2 RBI; Torres went 3-for-4 with an RBI. Detroit's offense, it appeared, was not going quietly. On the mound, starter Troy Melton labored through 4.1 innings, allowing 9 hits and 3 earned runs. Drew Sommers came on in relief and looked sharper — 2.0 innings, 4 strikeouts, 1 earned run — but the damage was already done by the time Benintendi came up in the seventh.

For Chicago, Anthony Kay gave the White Sox 5.1 innings of work, allowing 6 hits and 3 earned runs — serviceable, if not dominant. The real standout in the bullpen was Jordan Hicks, who threw 1.2 innings of scoreless ball, surrendering zero hits and zero walks while striking out three. That kind of late-inning lockdown looks like exactly what a team needs when it's clinging to a one-run lead. Grichuk, who finished 2-for-2 with a run scored, set the table in the seventh before Benintendi drove him in with the go-ahead single. Chicago's bullpen held from there, and the White Sox walked out of Detroit with a 4-3 win that felt every bit as tight as the final score suggests.