Andrew Vaughn knew it was gone once he connected.
Goodbye, baseball. Goodbye, losing streak. Goodbye to the ties to 1948.
The Chicago White Sox snapped a 10-game skid in improbable fashion, scoring seven runs in the ninth inning to stun the Tampa Bay Rays 12-9 in front of 17,049 on Sunday at Guaranteed Rate Field.
Vaughn capped the remarkable rally with a game-ending three-run homer to left field against reliever Garrett Cleavinger.
“I was just trying to put the ball in play,” Vaughn said. “We had great at-bats that inning, guys were getting on base, we were scoring runs and my sole purpose up there was to keep the line rolling.”
He did more than that, not that he remembers much in the immediate aftermath of making contact. Vaughn said he blacked out and didn’t recall rounding the bases.
But he remembers touching home and the celebration that ensued.
“I’ll have a nice little shiner tomorrow,” he said with a smile. “Don’t matter (who hit him). We won.”
It was the Sox’s largest ninth-inning comeback since Sept. 7, 2007, when they trailed 10-4 before scoring six ninth-inning runs against the Minnesota Twins and winning in extra innings. It was their biggest ninth-inning comeback without going to extras since April 28, 2004, when they trailed 8-4 before scoring five ninth-inning runs against Cleveland for a 9-8 victory.
Vaughn’s homer capped a shocking turn of events against the team with the best record in baseball.
“It was incredibly necessary,” Sox manager Pedro Grifol said. “This is probably the best team in baseball and we led in five of the seven (meetings this season). We had some heartbreak losses against them.
“To be able to have the lead, lose the lead and then come back there and do what we did in the ninth, baseball is a crazy game, man, and today was an example. But that clubhouse was jumping and it was something we needed. Now we have to build from it.”
The Sox, who entered the day tied with the 1948 club for the worst 28-game start in franchise history (7-21), let a two-run lead slip away in the eighth.
The Rays scored five in the inning, including a two-run homer by Luke Raley against Reynaldo López — who exited with what Grifol called “a little dead arm in the biceps” — and a solo blast by Christian Bethancourt off Kendall Graveman.
The final run scored when left fielder Romy Gonzalez dropped a fly ball. Gonzalez had entered after pinch running for Luis Robert Jr., who hit for Gavin Sheets in the seventh.
Robert was not in the starting lineup a day after Grifol pulled him “for not hustling down the line and the expectations that we have here as a ballclub.”
“He’s not playing (Sunday) because he was a little tight (Saturday) apparently,” Grifol said before the game.
Robert tapped a grounder back to the mound in the first Saturday and appeared to grimace while slowing down on his way to the bag. He told reporters through an interpreter after Saturday’s game that he “played conservative” with a sore left hamstring, adding, “I knew if I said something to him, he probably wouldn’t let me play.”
When the dust settled in the top of the eighth Sunday, the Rays were ahead 7-4.
The Sox scored a run in the eighth, but the Rays responded with two in the ninth and held a 9-5 lead. They were three outs from completing a four-game series sweep and seven-game season sweep.
Eloy Jiménez singled with one out, and reliever Jalen Beeks hit Yasmani Grandal with a pitch. Jake Burger drove in a run with a double. Oscar Colás followed with a sacrifice fly, making it 9-7.
Elvis Andrus, who had three hits, drove in Burger with a two-out single. Lenyn Sosa singled and the Rays brought in Cleavinger.
Adam Haseley singled to center on a 2-2 pitch, scoring Andrus to tie the game at 9. It was Haseley’s fourth hit of the game.
“Sometimes hits are contagious,” he said. “Seems like that last inning, everybody that got up to the plate was putting in a good at-bat.”
Vaughn was up next. He fell behind in the count but rallied to hit a 2-2 slider for the 409-foot game-winner.
“I saw incredible focus, especially with two strikes,” Grifol said of the ninth-inning approaches. “We had some big hits with two strikes. It was just that fight of not giving in, not striking out, putting the ball in play. We had a ton of ABs like that (Sunday).
“That’s what it takes. You’ve got to put the ball in play. You can’t strike out 15, 17 times and expect to win. Over the long haul you aren’t going to win too many. (Sunday) showed when you raise your level of focus and you create a little urgency for yourself and you concentrate on putting the ball in play, things can happen.”
And with that, the Sox found a way to finish a dismal month on a positive note.
“That felt like a huge weight off our shoulders,” Vaughn said. “April showers bring May flowers, so here we go.”
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