ST. LOUIS — It’s not every day you get the chance to close out a game in pouring rain.
So Chicago White Sox reliever John Brebbia — literally and figuratively — soaked up the opportunity.
What began as a light sprinkle turned into a downpour as Brebbia faced Masyn Winn. The Sox led by a run in the bottom of the 10th, but the St. Louis Cardinals had the bases loaded and one out.
“I love the elements,” Brebbia said. “You don’t often get to play when it’s pouring rain because they stop the game. So I try to take every advantage of that as possible.
“It’s just an absolute disaster when it’s coming down like that, so you never know what’s going to happen. It was kind of fun.”
As fans scrambled for cover at Busch Stadium, Brebbia tried to keep his hand and the ball as dry as possible to execute his pitches.
“The ball could not make it back to me from home plate to the pitcher’s mound without being soaking wet,” Brebbia said. “So I tried to close the gap and get it as quick as I could and just cover it. It was kind of soaked.”
Brebbia struck out Winn, then got within two strikes of wrapping up the game when the next batter, Nolan Gorman, fouled off the first pitch. Brebbia approached plate umpire CB Bucknor for a ball as crew chief Dan Iassogna pulled everyone off the field, signaling the start of a rain delay.
“I said: ‘Don’t you dare stop this game. Just keep it going,’” Brebbia said. “I don’t know what they said back to me. I know what they wanted to say is: ‘You are an idiot. We are going to stop it.’
“I did my best to try to keep it going so we didn’t have to wait around for hours to finally finish it. Plus, I was having a good time. It was pouring rain and you don’t get to do that often. They disagreed and the grounds crew disagreed, so we cleared the field and finished it later.”
Much later, as it turned out. After a 3-hour, 3-minute delay, the Sox completed a 6-5 victory in 10 innings in front of a small portion of the announced crowd of 38,559.
When play resumed, Tanner Banks entered in relief for the Sox.
“It was funny,” Banks said, “after the rain started and John’s out there arguing with the umpire — ‘Let me finish, let me finish, let me finish’ — and we came inside and it’s, OK, I’m the last arm available in the bullpen — it’s going to be me.
“Then it (dragged) out, (dragged) out and (dragged) out. I got to the point sitting here where I was like, OK, I have to relax, do something to take my mind away from the game because you can’t stay locked in for a couple hours. That’s kind of the mentality of the bullpen. I ended up taking a nap to reset and refocus. But it was good.”
Banks faced pinch hitter Iván Herrera.
“It was a coin toss, so we had an attack strategy for either of the potential hitters,” Banks said. “Just attack. I think the general focus as a pitcher is make your pitches and compete and battle. Fortunately I came in with one strike and (after) one pitch (it was) 0-2, and then you get to play that game a little bit, the chess game of pitching.”
Banks threw four pitches and got a called third strike to collect the save and end the marathon afternoon.
“I came into the game not really thinking about bases loaded, two outs,” Banks said. “Just me and (catcher) Korey (Lee) and make the pitch that he calls and trust him and trust myself. And when it called strike three, it was a big sigh of relief because, one, we’d been waiting forever but also because we’d won and that’s the goal.
“Just to see a plan come together and finish and top to bottom, the pitchers were great, the hitters were great and everybody battled today. We stuck it out through the rain and we had enough time to dry our jerseys.”
It took a while, but the Sox snapped a four-game losing streak while improving to to 2-14 on the road and 7-26 overall.
“Wild day,” Sox starter Erick Fedde said. “Waiting around to lose would have stunk. I’m really glad we won this one and it was a good one for the team.”
