Don’t be fooled by the 7-5 score. The game between the Chicago White Sox and the Seattle Mariners was a complete nightmare for those who love to see some point go on the board, instead of bad hitting (not great pitching, don’t be fooled by that as well) and 13 innings of scoreless baseball.

Eventually, the White Sox ended their 8 game losing streak (25-32), as Alejandro De Aza and Alex Rios each hitting an RBI single in the 16th inning to finally close out the game that lasted more than 5 and a half hours, to the huge disappointment of the 20,000, with a lot less left when the game was nearing its ending point, which was around 6 PM local time, on a game that began around noon.

Suddenly, in the 14th inning, things went off. The White Sox scored five runs off of Danny Farquhar and Hector Noesi, while on the other end, Addison Reed also gave up five runs, but last two more innings to record his second win of the season. Their 12 runs in extra innings  tied an American League record for most extra inning runs scored in a game. It was also  the first game in major league history in which each team scored 5+ runs in a game that was scoreless through nine innings.

The Mariners didn’t need as many hits to get their run going. After an RBI single from Endy Chavez (1-7 on the day), Kyle Seager hit a grand slam home run to tie the game at 5, making it the 10th extra-inning grand slam for the Seattle Mariners, more than any other major league franchise since the team’s inaugural season in 1977. It was the first home run allowed this year by Reed.

I don’t think you can necessarily try to hit a home run off him. He’s got pretty good stuff. He’s their closer for a reason. Just try to put a good swing on the ball and not strike out. Not that it helped the Mariners much, falling to 26-34, unable to sweep the series after winning the first two games, but winning any series this season for them is some kind of bonus, and not likely to happen much.

For the White Sox, who already battled their way back to over .500, it’s once again about hoping that this kind of win, especially this one, can give them the right kind of push in an attempt to hunt down their six game deficit behind the Detroit Tigers in the AL Central.

We’re all too exhausted right now to relish it. But when you’re down, you’ve got an eight-game losing streak, and you’re battling and what happens in the 14th happened it’s like, ‘How can it get any worse?’ … We battled and hopefully it does enough for us to get going back in the right direction.

The White Sox now kick off a four-game series with the Oakland A’s that extends right through the weekend, hoping it goes a little bit better than it did in the Bay Area last week, losing all three games, getting shut out in two of them.

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