Bregman's Walk-Off Single Sinks White Sox in Nine-Inning Thriller
Alex Bregman singled to center in the ninth inning to score the winning run, swinging the Cubs' win probability from 63% to 100% and delivering a 4-3 victory over the White Sox. It was his second RBI single of the night — the kind of performance that makes a game look easy in retrospect even though nothing about this one was.
The Cubs jumped on Erick Fedde immediately, and they did it with power. Pete Crow-Armstrong homered to right center (379 feet) in the first inning, and Michael Busch followed with a 421-foot shot to the same part of the park to make it 2-0 before the White Sox had recorded an out. Fedde ultimately finished with 4.2 innings, allowing 3 hits and 0 earned runs — the bullpen absorbed the damage — but the early hole was real. Kevin Gausman, meanwhile, gave the Cubs 4.1 innings and surrendered 7 hits and 3 earned runs, which looks like a rough outing on paper and was exactly that in practice.
The White Sox answered with a rally that looked, for a stretch, like it might be enough. A run scored in the second on a single by Romo that plated Meidroth. Then Munetaka Murakami launched a 406-foot homer to left center in the third to tie it at 2. The go-ahead run came in the fourth when Tristan Peters doubled to center to score Colson Montgomery, putting Chicago's South Siders up 3-2. Montgomery went 3-for-4 on the night and Peters finished 2-for-4 with the RBI — the story of innings two through six appears to have belonged entirely to the White Sox offense. Javier Assad then came on for the Cubs and was dominant: 3.0 innings, 2 hits, 0 earned runs, 0 walks, 2 strikeouts. That performance looks like the bridge that kept the Cubs alive long enough for the offense to wake back up.
Bregman had already tied the game in the seventh with a single to left that scored Alcántara, making it 3-3. But the defining moment came in the ninth. With the Cubs trailing by nothing and everything on the line, Bregman singled to center, Kelly scored, and Crow-Armstrong moved to second. Win probability swung from 63% to 100% on that one swing of the bat. Final: Cubs 4, White Sox 3. Bregman finished 2-for-5 with 2 RBI — quiet line, enormous impact. The White Sox outhit the Cubs and led after four innings, which makes this loss sting in a particular way. Grant Taylor threw a clean inning of relief for Chicago's South Side, but it wasn't enough. The Cubs found a way.