Bullet-point recap, as I got home from Minneapolis around the fourth inning:
*The White Sox held a big advantage on paper, and it played out to a huge advantage in practice. Dylan Cease finished the half by allowing just one hit and two walks over seven innings, and his eight strikeouts are enough for him to hold the league lead in that category at the All-Star break.
*On the other side, the White Sox couldn't figure out Chris Archer until the fifth inning, but once the Sox started hitting him, they couldn't stop no matter who was on the mound.
*Archer retired the first two batters of the fifth inning on two pitches, but when he walked Seby Zavala on four pitches to extend the inning, the flood gates opened. Adam Engel, Tim Anderson, Yoán Moncada and Andrew Vaughn all followed with line drives. Anderson's and Vaughn's were good for two runs apiece, and Vaughn's was off Tyler Duffey, the first Twins reliever of the game.
*The White Sox smoked the third Twins reliever of the game, pounding Joe Smith for three homers over the first third of the seventh inning. After an Engel single and an Anderson groundout, Moncada catapulted a center-cut first-pitch sinker 437 feet out to dead center. Vaughn needed to see five pitches, but when Smith rolled a slider, Vaughn hoisted it out just above the wall to left to go back-to-back.
*Smith couldn't put anybody away. After Vaughn's hit on 2-2, José Abreu singled on 0-2, and Gavin Sheets walked on seven pitches. Then Josh Harrison homered on a 1-2 slider in a fashion similar to Vaughn's shot, and the rout reached double digits.
*The Sox scored their 11th run in the ninth on three straight hits, with Engel slicing a double inside the right-field line to cap off his excellent weekend replacing Luis Robert. He went 7-for-13 with a homer, a double, four RBIs and three runs scored over the four games.
*Engel also made a great sliding catch in center field in the bottom of the first as part of a good day of defense from the outfield that allowed Cease to have dreams of a no-hitter for the first half of the game.
*The no-hit bid died when Alex Kiriloff followed a Jorge Polanco walk with a single to left that put Cease in his only jam of the day. Then he simply decided to strike out Jose Miranda and Nick Gordon to eradicate the drama, and he finished his afternoon retiring the final eight he faced.
*Cease got a whopping 21 swinging strikes on just 94 pitches, including six on his fastball, so his slider didn't do all of the lifting.
*Zavala also helped, erasing the other Cease walk in the second inning with an inning-ending SHOTHO.
*García also made a sliding catch in left, but he committed a couple of errors at shortstop over the last two innings that jeopardized the shutout. As the score above proves, Joe Kelly and José Ruiz pitched around them.
*Sheets was the only member of the lineup who didn't get a hit. The guy had a rough series, going 1-for-13 with 13 stranded.
*The White Sox did not have a rough series. They outscored the Twins 32-10 and now are only three games out of first after taking three of four.
