Chicago Cubs at Chicago White Sox: Final Score & Recap

The Chicago Cubs held off the Chicago White Sox 7-6 on August 9, 2024, at Guaranteed Rate Field, completing a victory built largely on a dominant early offensive burst. The Cubs scored three runs in the first inning and added four more in the third to build a 7-0 lead through three frames, which proved just enough to survive a steady White Sox comeback that chipped away at that deficit across the middle and late innings.

The decisive moment of the comeback bid came in the bottom of the seventh, when Andrew Benintendi connected for a home run off Drew Smyly, a swing that shifted the win probability by 15.2 percentage points in Chicago's favor and kept White Sox hopes alive. Benintendi finished as the game's top performer by win probability added at plus-32.4 percent WPA with a plus-1.8 RE24, making him the central figure in Chicago's offensive resistance. Gavin Sheets contributed plus-12.9 percent WPA and plus-1.2 RE24 for the White Sox, while Dominic Fletcher added plus-9.0 percent WPA and plus-1.0 RE24. On the Cubs side, Michael Busch grounded into a double play in the top of the eighth off Chad Kuhl that cost his team 14.0 percentage points of win probability, a sequence that briefly kept the White Sox within striking distance.

Porter Hodge was the most impactful arm in the game, posting plus-25.4 percent WPA out of the Cubs bullpen. His biggest contribution came in the bottom of the eighth, when Korey Lee grounded out in a situation that erased 24.2 percentage points of White Sox win probability, effectively ending Chicago's most dangerous threat. Héctor Neris closed it in the ninth despite a scare when Brooks Baldwin singled to generate plus-12.8 percent WPA for the White Sox, but Nicky Lopez's lineout to end the game cost Chicago's South Siders a final 16.6 percentage points. The DiamondIQ model had opened the game with the White Sox at just a 27 percent win probability, a number that ultimately reached zero.