Nine losses in twelve

The White Sox had dropped nine of 12 games and matched their worst skid of the season at four. Their lead over Cleveland had shrunk to half a game.

Vibes remained high

Through the slide, players and coaches kept insisting the clubhouse was fine. They trusted the slugging offense, the patched-together pitching and the loose room to pull them out.

Back where he started

Randal Grichuk, 35, cleared the right field wall at Busch Stadium with a two-out, two-strike, two-run opposite-field homer. He began his career in that ballpark 12 years earlier.

Hudson slams the door

Bryan Hudson pitched a perfect ninth to finish off a 6-5 win that felt stolen. Only afterward did players admit in the locker room how badly they had needed it.

“It was something that we really needed.”

Cleveland lost too

Nobody said it out loud, but the Guardians dropped their afternoon game in Minneapolis. Chicago flies to Cleveland on Sunday night up a game and a half and still leading the AL Central.

Teel's walk set it up

Kyle Teel fell behind 0-2 against closer Riley O'Brien and worked a walk anyway. That put the tying run on base right in front of Grichuk.

“Momentum is a powerful thing.”

Nothing else looked fixed

The win came with no evidence the team is actually healthy. A scouting director resigned while under internal investigation, and the pitching gave the Sox fresh reasons to worry.

Castillo gets worse

Pitching behind an opener, trade deadline addition Luis Castillo lasted 2 2/3 innings and gave up three runs. His velocity had sagged into the low 90s with no clear explanation.

The pitch that saved it

With the bases loaded in the fourth, Castillo snuck a fastball past Cardinals RBI leader Alec Burleson to escape. Given how his stuff looked, it was its own small miracle.

No time to fix him

Castillo said his mechanics and body felt fine, so there is no obvious repair. Venable ruled out another skipped start this late and said health is the only priority now.

“I don't know if we have time to do that again.”

A lineup that moved

Venable slid a resurgent Teel toward the top and dropped the struggling Colson Montgomery and Braden Montgomery. He insisted it was handedness matchups, not panic.

Aggressive off the bench

After second-guessing his recent pinch-hitting calls, Venable went back to being aggressive. He used Grichuk in the fourth against a lefty, which set up the ninth-inning matchup.

Stay on the fastball

Four straight sliders put Grichuk down 1-2 against a right-hander. He stuck to the team's rule about hunting the fastball, and O'Brien left a sinker over the plate.

“We all thought that there was another offspeed coming down below the zone.”

The mistake they were owed

The Sox kept saying an opponent's mistake would eventually break their way. Grichuk's homer was the eighth go-ahead blast in the ninth or later this season, most in baseball.

“Haven't been able to get that big hit to push us over the top and I know we all feel it.”