Brayan Rocchio, Guardians walk off White Sox to even series

CLEVELAND — With a playoff-like crowd at Progressive Field on its feet chanting his name, Brayan Rocchio answered the call once again. Rocchio's two-run double with two outs in the ninth inning Tuesday night propelled the Guardians to a 7-6 walk-off victory that evened their three-game series against the White Sox. Cleveland has a chance to take over first place in the Central Division for the first time since July 3 with a win in the rubber match Wednesday afternoon. "When I hear Rocchio, I cannot disappoint the crowd when they're doing that. That's the best thing ever in my life," said Rocchio, who was chased into the outfield and mobbed by his teammates. Rocchio has a penchant for delivering late in big games late in the regular season and into the playoffs. That's why he's earned the nicknames "Playoff Rocchio" and "Rocctober." It was the shortstop's fourth walk-off hit of the season and the seventh of his career, with four of them coming in September. "It's unbelievable. I mean, he just has a knack for coming through," manager Stephen Vogt said. "He wants to win. He stays calm in those moments. And it's such a difficult thing to do. It's just so hard to get a hit, but let alone in those situations. He just seems to come through. And that was a huge, huge moment for us. "I think once you've done it a few times, you've been up with the game on the line, whether you succeeded or not, it's experience doing it. And Rokie's obviously had a number of walk-off hits this year and over the course of his career, but once you know you can do it, it makes it so much easier to slow down." Rocchio was down 0-2 in the count to Chicago closer Grant Taylor when he sent a fly ball to left field that initially looked like the final out. But it kept tailing toward the foul line and landed just beyond the reach of a diving Sam Antonacci. "When I was in the dugout and I saw he was coming up to bat, the thought going through my head was 'This is too perfect,'" said closer Cade Smith, who got the final five outs on 16 pitches. "He's done it over and over again. How could you not talk about it? In these meaningful games, in these tight games, in those big moments, it just looks like he's comfortable. He's been there before. He's not trying to do too much. 'Just take a breath and do your job.'" "He hit it and I was like, 'Oh, he kind of barreled it,'" Vogt said. "But obviously when you go the other way in the air, you never know. And then once I saw Antonacci, where he was playing and running after it, I was like, 'Oh, he burned him,' and fortunately he did." According to Rocchio, the first thing that crossed his mind was "I did it again." The Guardians scored three times on back-to-back home runs from Joe Adell and Travis Bazzana in the first and led 4-2 through five innings. But like it did Monday, Cleveland melted down in the sixth and found itself trailing 6-4 after Chicago scored four times off Craig Yoho and Hunter Gaddis. Bazzana's second homer brought the Guardians within a run in the bottom of the inning. Cleveland starter Foster Griffin lasted only four innings, striking out five over the first three innings, before Vogt turned the game over to the bullpen. "Foster I thought threw the ball OK. They just really made him work," Vogt said. "The command was a little bit off. They had great at-bats. Their team approach is unbelievable. They're very, very good. With where his pitch count was … at the time we knew going to the pen in the fifth, you got to rip up the plan." The Guardians trail the White Sox by a half-game but lead the Rangers by 1½ games and the Blue Jays by two games for the American League's final wild card berth. "It's like it was last year in September, where we were playing playoff games for a whole month and a half before the end of the regular season," Smith said. "It's been similar for us here. It's been tooth and nail the last couple weeks. We have the understanding that these games are meaningful. They matter, like, a lot. You can tell the fans know it. You can tell the atmosphere in the stadium. They know it." It was the eighth walk-off win of the season for the Guardians. Since the ballpark opened in 1994, Cleveland has posted more walk-off wins (259) than any other team in the majors. Contact Chris Assenheimer at (440) 329-7136 or cassenheimer@chroniclet.com. Like him on Facebook and follow him @CAwesomeheimer on X.