Guardians defeat White Sox 6-5 on Rocchio walk-off homer

Brayan Rocchio hit a two-run homer in the bottom of the ninth inning to give the Cleveland Guardians a 6-5 victory over the Chicago White Sox on Thursday night. Cleveland trailed by three runs before rallying in the late innings. Pinch hitter David Fry hit a solo homer in the seventh that cut the deficit to 5-4.

Game recap White Sox reliever Grant Taylor walked Rhys Hoskins to open the ninth.

Kahlil Watson flied out before Rocchio hit a 99 mph fastball down the right-field line for his sixth home run of the season. It was Rocchio's second career walk-off homer. Tim Herrin pitched a perfect ninth for the win. Earlier, Travis Bazzana hit an RBI double and Rocchio drew a bases-loaded walk in the third to give Cleveland a 2-0 lead.

Sam Antonacci delivered an RBI double and scored on Kyle Teel's two-run double to put Chicago ahead 3-2 in the fifth. Braden Montgomery doubled in the sixth and Chase Meidroth hit a two-run homer that made it 5-2. Cleveland loaded the bases in the sixth and cut the lead to 5-3 on an RBI groundout by Chase DeLauter.

Fry connected again in the seventh for his second pinch-hit homer of the year. White Sox starter Davis Martin allowed two runs and six hits in 3⅓ innings. Daniel Espino, Shawn Armstrong and Herrin combined for four scoreless innings of relief that allowed one hit.

Cleveland improved to 46-42 and trails Chicago (45-41) by less than one percentage point in the AL Central standings.