Gavin Sheets spent a day in the majors earlier this season, but didn't make it into a game and was quickly optioned back to Charlotte. Tuesday night, he did his best to make that look like a mistake. A contact-based offense led by Sheets plus some contact-based pitching from Lucas Giolito combined to give the White Sox a win in the delayed first game of a three-game set against Minnesota at Guaranteed Rate Field.
At the start, it looked like this would be a classically frustrating White Sox-Twins affair. Josh Donaldson hit a two-run homer on the fifth pitch of the game to give Minnesota a quick lead, and the Sox failed to capitalize on early Kenta Maeda's struggles with the strike zone.
After retiring Tim Anderson to lead off the White Sox half of the first, Maeda walked three straight to load the bases. Zack Collins hit a nubber into the shifted defense to trade an out for a run, but Andrew Vaughn flew out to end the threat. The second inning looked much the same as the first: Sheets, who was called up earlier Tuesday when Jake Lamb hit the IL with a quad injury, led off with his first career hit. Leury Garcia followed with a walk to put two runners on with no outs, but Danny Mendick, Anderson, and Brian Goodwin couldn't bring either runner home.
A short rain delay in the third briefly stopped the action, but not Maeda's control problems. When the game resumed, Jose Abreu walked and Yasmani Grandal bunted into the shift to again put two on with no outs. Collins struck out before a blooped Vaughn single loaded the bases. Then Sheets added to his night of firsts by smacking a laser off Maeda's glove to score Grandal, though Andrelton Simmons collected the ball in enough time to record an out at second. That would end up saving the Twins a run when Garcia singled to bring home Grandal and make the score 3-2. This time, Maeda induced a popup from Danny Mendick to end the inning.
The Sox finally broke through in the 5th. Back-to-back singles from Collins and Vaughn again brought Sheets up with runners on base. This time he flared a double into no-man's land along the left field line, scoring Collins on an aggressive send by Joe McEwing and collecting his first career extra base hit. A Garcia sac fly scored Vaughn, then Sheets came around on a single by Mendick to end Maeda's night. Luckily, the Sox lineup wasn't quite done when Maeda was; Anderson singled home Mendick to score what would eventually be the deciding run, then Twins reliever Danny Coulombe picked Anderson off to end the Sox rally.
Giolito pitched five pristine innings sandwiched between two unfortunate innings. Despite only striking out one batter, he recovered from Donaldson's homer to face the minimum in innings 2 through 6, aided by two Garcia-Mendick double plays and a great throw from Vaughn that nailed Nelson Cruz trying to stretch a single into a double. Tony LaRussa tried to get a seventh inning from Gio, but Trevor Larnach (or more accurately, the playing-out-of-position rookie Sheets) quickly put an end to that idea. Sheets drifted under Larnach's high fly towards the right field corner, but the ball bounced off his arm and Larnach made it to second base.
Evan Marshall came in to relieve Giolito and was promptly greeted with doubles on his first two pitches by Cruz and Max Kepler. He recovered to retire the next two batters, but Kepler scored on Alex Kiriloff's groundout to cut the Sox lead to 7-5. Marshall left with what appeared to be a hand injury, so Ryan Burr came on in his stead and Garcia ended the inning with a slick pick at 3rd.
Burr pitched a clean 8th to get the ball to Liam Hendriks, who could not say the same. Sandwiched around a strikeout of Nelson Cruz, Hendriks hit Larnach with a pitch and walked Max Kepler. A wild pitch advanced both runners, and setup Larnach to score on Jorge Polanco's soft groundout to Mendick. Abreu nearly nailed Kepler advancing to third, but his throw pulled Garcia away from the bag to put the tying run at third with two outs. Kiriloff flied out to end the game at a breezy three and a half hours.
Notes:
- Billy Hamilton returned from the Injured List, replacing Sheets in the top of the 8th inning. Luis Gonzalez was optioned to Charlotte in the corresponding move.
- The White Sox have scored 18 straight runs without a home run.
- If it seems like Sheets had an uncommonly good debut for a White Sox hitter, that's because he did.
