The Twins and White Sox were tied at 2 in the bottom of the ninth with the bases loaded and one out. Brock Stewart was on the mound for the Twins. A walk, hit, error, or hit-by-pitch would have ended the game in favor of the White Sox. Stewart started the at-bat with a fastball that had heavy run, followed by a slider for strike two. Ahead 0-2, he threw a sweeping slider away that the batter chased. With a wild pitch or passed ball possibly ending the game, Stewart trusted his catcher to block it. Still 1-2, the batter fouled off another slider. Then Stewart doubled back to the two-seamer, and things got weird.
The pitch ran inside and hit the batter, but he also swung. White Sox players thought they had walked it off on a hit-by-pitch, but the umpire ruled it a strikeout, saying the batter went around. On replay, it looked like the pitch hit him in the hands, then the pain reaction caused him to lose control of the bat, continuing through the zone. The batter argued he didn’t mean to swing and only flinched, but the swing was ruled legitimate. Instead of a walk-off, the batter was out. High drama, bad luck.
Stewart struck out the next hitter too, using the same mix of sliders and the two-seam fastball. He used the slider repeatedly to set up the two-seamer, which darts the opposite way. The at-bats were built on deception and pressure. Stewart’s sequencing and execution sealed the inning. What could have been a crushing walk-off turned into a gutsy hold.