CHICAGO — Misfortune in baseball seems to compound in periods of duress and there the Toronto Blue Jays were in the sixth inning, Bo Bichette unable to contain a Tim Anderson one-hopper and Chris Bassitt hanging a sweeper that Luis Robert Jr. sent into the sky alongside the July 4 fireworks. Like that, a comfy 2-0 lead became a 3-2 deficit and it felt like the woes of a weekend sweep by the Boston Red Sox had followed them down to the South Side.
An abortive rally in the seventh inning, in which the Blue Jays put men on the corners with one out but came up empty, only appeared to reinforce the notion. But life can come at you quick and did it ever in the eighth, which began with Brandon Belt working a walk ahead of a Vladimir Guerrero Jr. home run and ended with Erik Swanson working around a bad-break, one-out triple to keep a one-run lead intact in what finished as a 4-3 win over the Chicago White Sox.
Guerrero’s 13th of the season, a 367-foot liner to right field off an ill-advised high slider from Joe Kelly, is precisely the type of big-blow hit that’s been so hard to come by for the Blue Jays during this curious first half of the season.
Whit Merrifield delivered one earlier in the game, a two-out, two-run double with the bases loaded in the fourth that opened the scoring, but the production paused there, as Alejandro Kirk’s soft liner up the middle was gobbled up by Zach Remillard to end the frame.
Bassitt, masterful through five, looked set to make it stand up, but a one-out single by Andrew Benintendi started a rally in the sixth, Anderson’s base hit that Bichette nearly corralled put two on and Robert crushed an 0-1 sweeper that sat right in the happy zone.
Bassitt managed to limit the damage there in a second straight strong start after three rough outings, which eventually proved pivotal.
Still, even after the Guerrero home run there was a tightwire to walk, made all the more complicated for Swanson when an Anderson liner down the right-field line popped out of George Springer’s glove and the shortstop sped to third as the right-fielder flew into the netting.
Swanson fought off the bad vibes to pop up Robert and get Eloy Jimenez on a fly ball to left and Jordan Romano, who surrendered the game-winning homer to Alex Verdugo in the ninth inning Sunday, ripped through a clean ninth to lock down the win before a Guaranteed Rate Field crowd of 32,607.
