ANAHEIM, Calif. — The White Sox rallied for three runs in the ninth inning to force extra innings.
Then they went ahead in the 11th on Tim Anderson’s home run in the 11th.
But this is Angel Stadium, where bad things always seem to happen to the Sox, and that they did in the bottom of the 11th when the Angels rallied for two runs to claim a 7-6 victory, handing the Sox their eighth loss in 10 games and 13th in their last 14 games at the Big A.
“We had the pop fly to left by [Cameron] Maybin, and I thought how often does your left fielder fall down and trip, lose his footing?” said closer David Robertson, who pitched a perfect 10th before giving up the two runs on four hits. “Things happened. It’s a crazy game. I mean, I’m smiling about it now but I’m furious that we lost. But looking back on it a lot of weird things went on.”
Weird? How about left fielder Melky Cabrera slipping on what he called a “bad square” of grass in left field?
How about Albert Pujols’ bases loaded single, a deep liner, caroming off retreating center fielder Leury Garcia to score Ben Revere with the winning run from third. Had Garcia caught it, it would have been a walk-off sacrifice fly.
“It was a crazy game,” Sox starting pitcher Derek Holland said.
Anderson, playing his first one in five days, connected against Yusmeiro Petit with two outs, for his third homer of the season. Anderson had missed the Sox’ weekend series to attend a friend’s funeral and didn’t play in the Sox’ 5-3 loss to the Angels on Monday night.
Robertson (2-1) gave up a leadoff single to right by shortstop Andrelton Simmons, who advanced to second on a passed ball by catcher Omar Narvaez. Robertston then fielded Danny Espinosa’s attempted sacrifice bunt and threw out Simmons at third, with help from third baseman Tyler Saladino’s acrobatic tag.
But Revere, pinch-hitting, blooped a single to center and Maybin, a .214 hitter, collected his fifth hit on a fly ball that fell because Cabrera slipped in left field and couldn’t recover. Anderson, racing toward left field to rescue him, swiped at it but couldn’t glove an over-the-shoulder attempt as the tying run scored.
“I just slipped,” Cabrera said. “This little square, kind of a different grass. I just slipped there.“If I don’t slip, I catch the ball.”After Mike Trout was walked intentionally to load the bases, Pujols hit one fairly deep to set off a walk-off celebration in the infield for the Angels, who improved to 21-21.
Trailing 5-2, the Sox pushed across three runs in the ninth against reliever David Hernandez to tie it, the first coming on Avisail Garcia’s RBI double off the right field wall and two of them on Todd Frazier’s chopper that bounced over Hernandez and rolled between first baseman Jefry Marte and second baseman Danny Espinosa and just barely onto the outfield grass. Frazier, protecting with two strikes, threw his bat at the ball, and Garcia was able to score all the way from second, his hand barely beating Maldanado’s tag for the tying run.
“I bet you everybody under the sun thought we were out of it,” manager Rick Renteria said.
“We came back in that wild inning but they got a couple jam shots.”
Holland allowed three runs in six innings, two of them on Pujols’ two-run single in the third for his 1,845th and 1,846th RBI, breaking a tie with Carl Yastrzemski for 13th on the all-time list. Maybin singled in a run in the fourth to put Holland behind 3-0.
Leury Garcia extended his hitting streak to nine when he singled in the sixth against Angels starter CJ Ramirez, and Yolmer Sanchez followed with a homer, cutting the Angels lead to 3-2.
After Holland exited, the Angels scored two in the seventh to widen their lead to 5-2, the damage inflicted against relievers Gregory Infante, Dan Jennings and Chris Beck. Leury Garcia threw out Pujols from center trying to score from second on Marte’s RBI single to end the inning, but not before pitching coach Don Cooper was ejected by umpire Tripp Gibson for arguing balls and strikes on a bases-loaded walk.
