Pete Crow-Armstrong hit a Jonathan Cannon cutter just past Chicago White Sox first baseman Tim Elko and down the right-field line in the sixth inning Sunday at Wrigley Field.
Right fielder Michael A. Taylor got to the ball quickly and fired it to second, hoping to cut down the speedy Chicago Cubs center fielder.
While Crow-Armstrong slid in safely at second, Vidal Bruján — who began on first base and slowed down as he reached third — sped up again in an attempt to score the go-ahead run.
Shortstop Chase Meidroth threw to the plate, but Bruján made it safely with a head-first slide just ahead of the tag from catcher Edgar Quero.
The Sox challenged the call, but the ruling stood after a video review.
“Good baserunning, heads-up baserunning,” Sox manager Will Venable said. “Kind of a tough spot where you’re trying to get the ball in as an outfielder. Going to second base there is all right. And I thought Chase did a good job being heads up and getting it home and just beat him there. Tough play and credit to them for a good heads-up baserunning play.”
It was the first of three runs in the inning for the Cubs, who completed the three-game City Series sweep by defeating the Sox 6-2 in front of 40,152.
Bruján’s sprint to the plate gave the Cubs a 2-1 lead.
“(Crow-Armstrong) was able to keep it fair down the line, kind of some tough luck there,” Cannon said. “Thought we had him at the plate. It was a close play, probably could have gone either way. Just a little bit unlucky.”
Cannon was standing near the plate when the play concluded.
“I thought his hand might have missed the plate,” Cannon said. “But if they called him out, it probably would have stood. If they called him safe, it was going to stand. There just wasn’t a lot of evidence you could see.”
The Cubs then benefited from a miscue from the Sox — a theme for the series — when left fielder Brooks Baldwin dropped Kyle Tucker’s high fly. Tucker raced to second while Crow-Armstrong advanced to third on the error.
“That ball is coming back toward the infield there, and he’s battling the sun,” Venable said. “(The conditions have) been tough for both sides this whole series. It showed its head again today.”
Crow-Armstrong scored on Seiya Suzuki’s sacrifice fly to center and Michael Busch knocked in Tucker with a single against reliever Steven Wilson, putting the Cubs ahead 4-1.
The Cubs tacked on one run in the seventh and the eighth while sending the Sox to their fourth consecutive defeat.
Miguel Vargas homered in the fourth inning Sunday for the Sox, his third of the series. He later had a brief chat with Cubs reliever Brad Keller after getting hit by a pitch in the eighth inning. But there were few other fireworks for the offense, as the Sox were outscored 26-8 in the series.
All three City Series games were decided by four or more runs, but the Sox didn’t help themselves along the way.
Friday’s second inning included catcher Matt Thaiss dropping a throw from Meidroth, which led to Carson Kelly scoring the game-tying run. That was part of a six-run inning, featuring a three-run home run by Crow-Armstrong. The Sox went from leading 2-0 to trailing 6-2. They lost 13-3.
The Sox trailed 5-3 in the fifth inning Saturday when second baseman Lenyn Sosa was charged with a two-out throwing error. Right fielder Joshua Palacios then misplayed Bruján’s high fly to right, and the ball bounced into the stands for a run-scoring ground-rule double. The Cubs went on to win 7-3.
The lack of crisp play showed up again in the sixth inning Sunday on the dropped fly ball as the Sox fell to 19 games under .500 (14-33) for the first time this season.
“I think with the elements, that added a layer of plays, probably four or five, that left us leaving here feeling like we played worse than we probably did in most areas,” Venable said. “There are plays in there that we have to do a better job executing and we have over the last few series. But, yeah, we have to do a better job.
“This is a tough place to play. You see guys who have been in this league for a long time struggling with these elements and this is a tough place to play even without the wind and sun. It’s just one of those things, as these guys get more experienced, they’ll be more comfortable, but it’s tough for everybody.”
After the tough series, the Sox find themselves tied with last year’s team for the worst 47-game start in franchise history.
“For the most part, even though those games kind of got out of hand a little bit, I felt like we were in them for a lot of it,” Cannon said. “Kind of some mistakes that ended up costing us the game. They didn’t make those mistakes and they were able to come out on top.
“Just some mistakes that I think that moving forward if we don’t make them, then we’ll be in a lot more games and win a lot more games.”
