CLEVELAND — Chicago White Sox center fielder Billy Hamilton had a Little League home run.
But that wasn’t enough to topple 2020 American League Cy Young Award winner Shane Bieber, who struck out seven in seven innings to lead the Cleveland Indians to a 6-5 victory against the Sox on Tuesday at Progressive Field.
Bieber allowed three runs (two earned) on five hits with two walks.
The Sox scored twice in the ninth, but José Abreu grounded out with the bases loaded as they dropped their second straight. Their lead over the second-place Indians in the AL Central fell to 2½ games.
Indians catcher Austin Hedges hit a go-ahead two-run home run off Sox starter Dylan Cease in the fourth. Cease allowed six runs on eight hits with two strikeouts and one walk in 3⅓ innings.
He had some bad luck in the first, which featured a batter reaching on a wild pitch after a strikeout and two infield singles that produced two runs.
Hamilton knocked in two with a double in the second. He advanced to third when the relay throw went to the plate and scored when Hedges couldn’t handle the ball cleanly. The wild sequence gave the Sox a 3-2 lead.
The Indians tied it on a two-out RBI single by Harold Ramírez in the third. Hedges gave them the lead an inning later with the two-run homer to left-center. José Ramírez added an RBI double later in the inning, the final run charged to Cease, to make it 6-3.
Sox catcher Zack Collins and second baseman Nick Madrigal drove in runs with singles in the ninth. The Sox loaded the bases with two outs, but Indians reliever James Karinchak got Abreu to ground out to shortstop Amed Rosario to end the game.