The White Sox homered twice in a game for the first time in April, and both came in the same inning to boot.
Alas, both came with the bases empty, they accounted for half of the White Sox's hits on the night, and the game was more defined by a couple of weak fly balls the White Sox didn't catch.
Willi Castro's three-run homer in the second inning put the Twins up 4-0 on Garrett Crochet through two, and that was all Minnesota needed to secure the series victory, while the White Sox are one afternoon away from staring down a winless road trip after losing the first six games of it.
The Twins broke upon the scoring when three consecutive hitters reached to start the second. Crochet walked Carlos Santana, then yielded a double to Austin Martin that put runners on second and third. Up came Christian Vázquez, who hit a soft fly ball to right. Gavin Sheets did not get there, and while Santana erred by tagging up on what would've been a too-shallow flyout, he still managed to dive in ahead of the throw for a 1-0 game.
Two batters later, Crochet tried to get a slider past Castro, but Castro buggy-whipped it into the left-field seats for a three-run homer.
After the Sox narrowed the lead to 4-3 entering the bottom of the fifth, Crochet gave up a leadoff double to Manuel Margot, ending his night. Deivi García entered as the Sox tend to line them up, and while he got two flyouts to Andrew Benintendi, it should've been three. Unfortunately, when Max Kepler hit a shallow fly ball to the triangle behind shortstop, Benintendi peeled out of Paul DeJong's way instead of calling him off, and the single made it a 5-3 game.
The Twins tacked on an insurance run with a single and a wild pitch, but stalling the White Sox's momentum was all that was necessary. Joe Ryan and the Twins bullpen retired 14 of the last 15 batters they faced, with a Paul DeJong HBP the lone exception.
The homers were a bright spot. Pillar got his hands in on a Ryan fastball that wasn't quite up or in enough and pulled it over the left field wall spoiling the no-hit and shutout bids in the third. Two batters later, Ryan hung a middle-middle slider to Lee, who seized the opportunity and made it a 4-2 game.
In the fifth, Braden Shewmake reached with a one-out bunt single and moved to second on Korey Lee's walk. He then stole third on Ryan, even though Ryan stepped off once teammates made him aware of Shewmake's break, then swiped home on a double steal with Lee as Danny Mendick struck out looking on a 3-2 pitch. The White Sox never drew closer.
Crochet dropped to 1-4, and his ERA drifted up to 6.37 after giving up five runs over four-plus innings. He generated only eight whiffs on 87 pitches. The opponent probably was a poor match for his style. Minnesota has been feasting on fastballs as Steven Wilson discovered on Tuesday, and he doesn't have the kind of slider that allows him to pitch backwards right now, as evidenced by the fact that he threw a career-high 12 changeups.
Bullet points:
*The top four in the order went 0-for-16 with seven strikeouts including an 0-for-4 night from Andrew Vaughn that sent him OPS down to .440.
*That's still better than Benintendi's .395 OPS, but he did notch his second extra-base hit of the year off Ryan, another double.
*The Twins went 3-for-14 with runners in scoring position and stranded 11, while the White Sox went 0-for-4 with three left on base.
*The White Sox have allowed at least six runs in all six of their losses this road trip, which is a first for the franchise since April of 2018.
*At 3-21, the 1988 Orioles are the only team with a worse first 24 games (1-23). The 2003 Tigers and 2022 Reds had the same records.
