Wild night in Chicago: Red Sox walk 15 times, score winning run off White Sox ...

CHICAGO -- It was the oddest of baseball contests, surely a first for the century-old game. There were few hits, but many bases on balls.

By the end, it was hard to tell which team played worse. The Boston Red Sox pitched well, but couldn't hit. The Chicago White Sox hit slightly less poorly, but pitched with unacceptable control.

Even before they turned the game over to infielder Leury Garcia in the 14th inning, when they had run out of available pitchers, the White Sox had walked 13 batters. Garcia walked two more to cap a 15-walk night for the Red Sox, their first 15-walk game since 1992.

Finally, the Red Sox offense showed some life. Jackie Bradley Jr. roped a two-out double off an 82-mph fastball from Garcia that scored two runs in the top of the 14th inning. On the 504th pitch, the Boston Red Sox completed their comeback with a 6-4 win.

'It's tough right now; it's 30 degrees,' said second baseman Dustin Pedroia. 'Trying to swing, and you've got to try to get the right pitch and put a good swing on it. We walked a bunch tonight. I mean, they had a position player out there. I think we wore 'em down enough.'

The Red Sox moved to 6-9 and can feel good about that, but Wednesday night was hardly a win for anybody other than the electric company that supplies US Cellular Field. The game lasted five hours, 17 minutes.

'Definitely a long one, but what you strive for is to win a game on the road,' said Clay Buchholz, who again showed improvement with six innings of three-run ball.

The game took on different flavors at different times.

As the Red Sox went hitless from the second inning until the ninth, going 0-for-25 in the process, it was an unfriendly reminder of the inconstancy of a lineup that continues to change on an almost-daily basis.

Then came the walks.

While the game might have felt like it was dragging to the few remaining spectators in the stands, the Red Sox took their time and forced the White Sox to throw strikes.

'It's not dragging on in the dugout,' manager John Farrell said. 'We're grinding away. Every time we got a man on base, there was renewed optimism, renewed talk that never ended all the way through the end. Once again, these guys, they don't give up.'

In the eighth inning, the Red Sox began crawling back with their old take-a-lot-of-pitches technique. The bats weren't working, so they stopped using them.

From the eighth inning through the 11th, the Red Sox went 1-for-12 but somehow scored three runs on seven walks, one hit-by-pitch and three sacrifice flies. They cut the White Sox's lead to one in the eighth, tied it, 3-3, in the ninth, and took a 4-3 lead in the 11th.

They did it with patience.

The White Sox needed just 123 pitches to get through seven innings (18 pitches per inning). They needed 91 pitches to get through the next four (23 pitches per inning).

'Just trying to find a way to score,' Pedroia said. 'I mean, everyone's by the heater (in the dugout), trying to stay warm and get some pine tar on your bat. Smashmouth baseball, you know?'

The Red Sox took one more turn at the Wheel of Misfortune in the bottom of the 11th.

With closer Koji Uehara still at least a day away from being available due to shoulder tightness, Edward Mujica entered for the save and allowed a lead-off walk. A stolen base, fielder's choice and squeaker single through the glove of Xander Bogaerts later and the White Sox had tied the game.

It took three more innings of wearing down the White Sox before their bullpen ran out of arms.

On came Garcia, the 5-foot-8, 170-pound second baseman who had never stepped foot on a major league mound. Grady Sizemore and A.J. Pierzynski gave away two quick outs, but did it with respect, swinging at the first strikes they saw.

Daniel Nava and Jonathan Herrera were more patient, drawing the team's 14th and 15th walks of the game, respectfully. Bradley worked a full count then doubled home a pair of runs.

'He was actually kind of funky, though,' Bradley said of Garcia. 'He was throwing a kind of rise ball. It was one of those things where I just wanted to make him throw strikes. He got behind 2-0, worked his way back. I just wanted to stay back, see it late and put a good swing on it.'

The Red Sox offense needed 14 innings to do it, but they scored more than four runs for the first time in seven games. The 2013 Red Sox never went more than five games without scoring at least five.

Wednesday, they left a season-high 16 runners on base and went 3-for-17 with runners in scoring position, falling to .192 (24-for-125) in such opportunities this season.

Their thinning offensive numbers tell one story; their injury report tells another.

Pedroia is dealing with left wrist inflammation. David Ortiz has been battling a sore calf. Mike Napoli has a dislocated finger. Shane Victorino and Will Middlebrooks are on the disabled list.

It's hard to point to one specific part of the lineup and circle it as the problem. Napoli was hot before he went down with an injury. Bogaerts continues to get on base at an elite rate, reaching five times on Wednesday. Sizemore has been one of the team's best hitters.

Until the eighth inning on Wednesday, there simply hasn't been a consistent approach, or one that the team can rely on. The lineup has changed almost daily, but the effectiveness has not.

Perhaps their late rally and 14-inning win can turn the tide.

'I mean, we could've lost that game just as much as we won it,' Pedroia said. 'Hopefully it makes us come together and play better and things start rolling our way.'

Victorino is expect to start a rehab assignment this weekend. His return can't come fast enough.

While Herrera and Ryan Roberts struggle to produce offensively while playing third base, Middlebrooks has been jacking home runs in batting practice but is still about a week or two away from returning, assuming his strained calf continues to show progression.

Reinforcements are coming. The Red Sox just need to survive until then.

Thursday is a new game, and with the possible return of Napoli, another opportunity for a new lineup.

One of them has to work.

Follow MassLive.com Red Sox beat writer @JMastrodonato on Twitter. He can be reached by email at jason.mastrodonato@masslive.com.

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