BALTIMORE — Colson Montgomery took something away while watching Chicago White Sox teammate Miguel Vargas work an 11-pitch at-bat against reliever Grant Wolfram in the eighth inning of Monday’s game against the Baltimore Orioles.
Wolfram eventually retired Vargas with a flyout to right field.
But Montgomery followed with a run-scoring double, giving the Sox the lead.
“Vargas having that (11)-pitch AB, I think that’s what also led to being able to put something in play just because he’s grinding his butt off, making (Wolfram) throw his best pitches and then he leaves something over the plate for me,” Montgomery said. “I just think that’s what everyone (on the team) does and I think that’s what everyone’s capable of doing.”
Montgomery later scored on a single by Randal Grichuk, and the Sox tacked on four more runs in the ninth for an 8-2 victory in front of 17,146 at Camden Yards.
“Really not trying to do too much,” manager Will Venable said of the late-game offensive surge. “Obviously, some really good stuff up and down the lineup.”
With the win and Cleveland’s 6-3 loss to the Texas Rangers, the Sox (44-39) reclaimed sole possession of first place in the American League Central. They are one game ahead of the Guardians (44-41).
The Sox received strong pitching from starter Sean Burke and relievers Chris Murphy, Grant Taylor and Brandon Eisert, while the offense came up big down the stretch to pull away in the opener of the three-game series.
Burke allowed two runs on four hits with eight strikeouts and three walks in 5 1/3 innings.
“The fastball was obviously the pitch that carried him tonight, and he did an outstanding job,” Venable said. “Just a couple of walks there, but outside of that, dominant with the fastball.”
Taylor retired all six batters he faced over the seventh and eighth innings on the way to collecting the win.
“Great stuff out of the bullpen,” Venable said.
Burke surrendered one run in the first. But the Sox scored twice in the third to take a 2-1 lead. Chase Meidroth led off the inning with a walk and then scored from first on a double by Jacob Gonzalez.
Gonzalez advanced to third on a flyout to center by Sam Antonacci. Vargas walked and later stole second base. With two outs, Kyle Teel hit a slow grounder that shortstop Gunnar Henderson couldn’t field cleanly. Gonzalez scored on the infield hit, but Vargas was thrown out at the plate when the ball bounced Shane Baz’s way and the pitcher tossed it to home in time.
The Orioles tied the score in the bottom of the third on a sacrifice fly to left field by Adley Rutschman, his second of the game.
Both starting center fielders made tremendous catches in the middle innings.
Sox center fielder Tristan Peters ran a long way and made a catch while crashing into the wall to prevent an extra-base hit for Dylan Beavers in the fourth inning.
“That was awesome,” Burke said. “He’s been awesome all year out there. I think that’s kind of the mentality of our team. You see guys like Antonacci getting hit by pitches, Peters is running into the wall, Vargas is diving into the netting, the tarp over there.
“Guys are playing hard and everybody wants to do everything they can to make the play. As a pitcher, that’s super comforting and nice to see your defense doing everything they can out there.”
In the fifth, Vargas appeared to hit his 20th home run of the season. But Orioles center fielder Colton Cowser raced to the wall, jumped and made the catch to rob Vargas.
The score remained tied at 2 until the eighth. Antonacci got hit by a pitch, then scored the go-ahead run on Montgomery’s one-out double. And with two outs, Grichuk added an insurance run with his RBI single.
Gonzalez extended the lead with a two-run single in the ninth. Two more runs were scored later in the inning when Teel’s grounder got past third baseman Blaze Alexander for an error.
The Sox did enough late to win for the fifth time in their last seven games.
“It’s not always gonna be perfect,” Teel said. “But, I feel like what this team does a great job with is just finding a way, and that’s what we did.”
