White Sox lose on a walk-off bunt, again, in wild finish vs. Royals
The White Sox lost on a bunt to the Twins last month
Well, it happened to the Chicago White Sox again. This time was just a little more legit than the first.
The Kansas City Royals picked up a very unique win Thursday at Kauffman Stadium in Kansas City. With the game tied 3-3 in the bottom of the ninth inning, Freddy Fermin laid down the perfect bunt to bring Nick Pratto home.
The White Sox had no play to make. The game was over just like that.
From the walk-off bunt to the frontward Gatorade bath, everything about the Royals' win was perfect 😁 pic.twitter.com/NzqSiFtoMv
— Yahoo Sports (@YahooSports) May 12, 2023
“He stuck his nose in there and got it done,” Royals manager Matt Quatraro said, via The Associated Press. “It’s a really, really hard play, if at all possible, to defense a safety squeeze unless you really sell out, and then you give up a free base. But to get that bunt down was really impressive.”
The walk-off bunt was the second of its kind in Major League Baseball this season. Remarkably, the first one was against the White Sox, too.
In the 10th inning of a game against the Minnesota Twins last month, Michael Taylor put down a sacrifice bunt at Target Field. Hanser Alberto tried to throw Taylor out at first, but the ball sailed and hit Taylor’s helmet, which allowed pinch-runner Willi Castro to make it home from second base to secure the 4-3 win. While the win technically came on a throwing error, the result was the same.
Thursday’s loss marked the third for the White Sox in the four-game series. They’ve lost five of their past eight and hold a 13-26 record, sitting 8.5 games back from the AL Central-leading Twins.
“There’s a lot of baseball left,” White Sox manager Pedro Grifol said via The Associated Press. “Disappointed at times with lack of urgency? Absolutely, I am. Absolutely. That starts with me. So we’ve got to be better. We’ve got to be better as a staff. We’ve got to be better as a ballclub.”
