KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Conor Gillaspie homered leading off the 12th inning Thursday night, lifting the Chicago White Sox to a 4-3 victory over the Royals and their first three-game sweep in Kansas City since 2005.
Gillaspie drove the second pitch he got from Luke Hochevar (3-2) just over the outstretched glove of right fielder Justin Maxwell for his 11th homer.
The tiebreaking shot came after Jacob Petricka made his major league debut in the 11th inning for the White Sox, inheriting runners on first and second with nobody out. Petricka calmly got Salvador Perez to ground into a double play to end the inning.
Addison Reed preserved Chicago’s sixth straight win, and the first of Petricka’s career, when the he left the tying run on second base for his 34th save.
Reed walked Billy Butler to start the 12th, and pinch runner Jarrod Dyson swiped second base with nobody out. Reed recovered to strike out pinch hitter David Lough, got Chris Getz to line out to shortstop, and then retired Emilio Bonifacio on a lazy fly ball to end the game.
It was the fifth straight loss for Kansas City, and the eighth in 10 games overall.
Emilio Bonifacio, Alcides Escobar and Jamey Carroll each drove in a run for the Royals in the fifth inning. Alexei Ramirez, Dayan Viciedo and Josh Phegley had RBIs for the White Sox.
Early on, James Shields and Carlos Quintana were engaged in quite a pitching duel.
Shields worked around a pair of singles in the first, and then retired 10 straight White Sox batters before Avisail Garcia singled to lead off the fifth.
Quintana set down the first nine Royals he faced in the game, including four strikeouts in the first two innings. His run ended with a leadoff single by Alex Gordon in the fourth.
The Royals finally broke through in the fifth inning in very Royals-esque fashion.
The light-hitting club managed to load the bases on a walk by Billy Butler and back-to-back singles by Maxwell and Mike Moustakas. Bonifacio followed with an RBI single, and Escobar and Carroll added back-to-back sacrifice flies to give the Royals a 3-0 lead.
Yep, three runs on a walk, three singles and two sacrifice flies.
The White Sox got two of the runs back in the sixth. The first came home on a one-out single by Ramirez, and the second on a blooper to center by Viciedo that fell just beyond the outstretched glove of Escobar retreating from shortstop and just in front of center fielder Dyson.
Phegley’s double off first base and into right field tied it in the seventh.
Shields and Quintana were both done after seven innings. Shields allowed nine hits and struck out eight without a walk, while Quintana allowed four hits with seven strikeouts and one walk.
The White Sox nearly pulled ahead off Royals closer Greg Holland in the ninth.
Phegley reached second when a sharp grounder got past Moustakas at third base and into left field with two outs. Danks then ripped a pitch right off Holland, but Perez leaped out from behind the plate, grabbed the ball and threw a strike to first to end the inning.