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CWS@COL: White Sox fall on walk-off single in 13th

  • 142 wins
  • 110 wins

DENVER -- Will Ohman had a feeling Ty Wigginton's softly hit blooper was going to be trouble when it left the bat.

With Troy Tulowitzki on first base and running on a full-count, two-out pitch in the 13th inning, the lefty reliever's fear was realized. Tulowitzki came all the way around to score the game's winning run on Wigginton's soft single to center, giving the Rockies a 3-2 walk-off win over the White Sox in front of 40,175 on Tuesday at Coors Field.

"Bottom line, I battled him, he battled me," Ohman said. "I threw a good pitch in that situation. It drops in. Game over."

Wigginton's bleeder gave the Rockies their first walk-off win of the season, and it also erased a strong performance from the White Sox pitching staff. In relief of Gavin Floyd, the bullpen worked 5 2/3 scoreless innings before yielding the game-winner.

But the White Sox hitters were a different story, as they managed just one run after Alexei Ramirez's solo home run -- his seventh -- in the second inning. Juan Pierre's double in the fifth gave Chicago a brief 2-1 lead, but the club didn't advance a runner to second base again.

"I don't think we should feel bad, because we deserved to lose this game," said White Sox manager Ozzie Guillen. "The way we played today from the first inning, I don't think we should've won this game. The only good thing about this game we did, we pitched well."

The solid pitching came courtesy of five different arms that kept a lefty-heavy Rockies lineup off-balance as the game waded into extra innings.

"They have some very good left-handed pitching in their bullpen," said Rockies manager Jim Tracy. "Once we got into extra innings, they were somewhat negating our lineup. [Chris] Sale is very, very tough, and [Matt] Thornton is very tough on lefties."

So was Floyd, who didn't discriminate against right-handers, either.

In two previous starts against Colorado, Floyd was 0-1 with a 9.31 ERA, but he hurled seven strong innings on his way to a no-decision, another chapter in a strong Interleague resume for the right-hander.

Floyd entered the game with a 2.29 ERA in Interleague Play (12 starts), second all-time behind Erik Bedard's 1.82, but he had gone 0-2 with a 6.16 ERA in his previous three starts overall. Making his first career start at Coors Field, Floyd washed away those woes by limiting the Rockies to just two runs on six hits. He threw 61 of his 94 pitches for strikes.

"I felt like I had good focus," Floyd said. "I located pretty well and got out of some jams."

Chicago broke a tie in the fifth on Pierre's double, his second of three hits, which scored Gordon Beckham. The White Sox seemed primed to add more in the frame, but with the bases loaded, Carlos Quentin grounded into an inning-ending double play.

The White Sox also did not capitalize on a two-on, one-out opportunity in the third when the Rockies turned two on Brent Morel.

Seth Smith -- who drove in Colorado's first run on a single in the fourth -- tied the game at 2 in the sixth on a sacrifice fly.

Some of the credit for Chicago's rough night at the plate, which featured just two hits after the seventh inning, could be contributed to Rockies starter Jason Hammel, who delivered an identical performance to Floyd's, giving up two runs on six hits over seven innings.

The Rockies also received stellar work from their bullpen, including a scoreless 13th inning from lefty Rex Brothers that netted the rookie reliever his first Major League win.

But Guillen said it was more a case of what his team did wrong in what he called "the worst game we played all year long." Guillen pulled center fielder Alex Rios in the bottom of the seventh inning for what he called poor baserunning.

"Rios didn't run the bases. That's why I took him out of the game," Guillen said. "If they don't run the bases, that reputation comes with me, and I have a great reputation in this game to do it that way. If they don't run the bases, they come out of the game."

With Rios out of the game, it left Brent Lillibridge in center field to make a play on Wigginton's hit in the 13th. But by the time Lillibridge reached the ball and made his throw to catcher A.J. Pierzynksi, it was too late to nail the hard-charging Tulowitzki, who began the winning rally with a one-out walk.

"It was a good call by their third-base coach, because he knew I had to break down and grab the ball," Lillibridge said. "He knew where we were playing, and he was aggressive about it. That was just a weird, weird play."

Nick Kosmider is an associate reporter for MLB.com. This story was not subject to the approval of Major League Baseball or its clubs.

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