First close victory of 2025!

It took some pretty strong luck, but the White Sox took advantage of the breaks they were given and ended up with an actual two-game winning streak with a 3-2 thriller.

No reason to draw out the final drama — here’s Brooks Baldwin inexplicably being gifted a splitter down the middle by Aroldis Chapman despite demonstrating he couldn’t handle Chapman’s heater, and showing his appreciation:

Baldwin’s single drove in Luis Robert Jr., who had been gifted two extra strikes by bad calls by plate umpire Paul Clemons when he was down 0-2 — not terrible calls, but balls that looked to have a bit of the plate — and walked, then stole second.

Robert had produced the first two White Sox runs, that also being a case of taking advantage of the luck handed out by the baseball gods. Boston starter Richard Fitts had been in total control through five innings, giving up just two singles, one of which was really a blatant error. But with Miguel Vargas up to start the sixth and the count 2-2, Fitts pulled up holding his shoulder and had to leave the game. Reliever Zach Kelly was granted extra time to warm up, but obviously rushed into action too soon, walking Vargas and going 2-0 on Robert before sending a fastball so much down the pipe it might as well have been on a tee. Robert took advantage.

Robert’s 106 mph, 384-foot shot to right in the sixth, his first homer of the season, tied the game at two.

The Red Sox had taken the lead in the fifth when Martín Pérez, who had coasted through three innings, started getting hit hard on his changeup in the fourth but survived, then got clobbered on the change for a single, triple, single (ex-White Sox utilityman Romy Gonzalez) and could have given up a lot more than two runs when another change was smashed by Rafael Devers, but right at Lenyn Sosa for a double play.

The bullpen then took over and held Boston to two singles over 4 1⁄3 innings, two of the innings handled by Mike Vasil, who has yet to be scored on in nine innings’ work — though this time he did get some help from a nice defensive play by an unlikely source.

Yep, that was actually Andrew Vaughn stretching out his 5´10´´ or 5´8´´ or 5´4´´ or whatever it really is body.

The win is credited to Tyler Gilbert, who only faced one batter. It takes Chicago’s season record to 4-10, with the finale of the Boston series tomorrow afternoon. With Shane Smith facing Garrett Crochet, that should be a real pitchers’ duel, though now that I said that it will probably end up 11-9.