Minnesota Twins 11, Chicago White Sox 1: Berrios strikes out 11, Rosario HRs twice

Eddie Rosario had two home runs tonight. With Byron Buxton’s three on Sunday and Jorge Polanco’s two yesterday, that’s three games in a row for a Twins player to go multi-dong. According to radio, this has never happened in team history. It’s also the Twins’ 50th homer this month; they’ve never done that in August before.

More importantly for the Twins’ playoff-running-hoping-thing, the occasionally “um” Jose Berrios was a definite “yum” here. Eleven Ks, four hits, one walk, 7 IP. Berrios only looked shaky in the fourth inning, which went accordingly:

Strikeout. Hit batter. Single. Strikeout. Walk. Bases-loaded strikeout.

If you’re following closely, that’s no runs scored. And Chicago wouldn’t get any off him all night. They only managed a garbage run against Glen Perkins in the ninth, which let’s choose to think of as a spring training appearance.

Ryan Pressly pitched a scoreless eighth. Berrios probably could have done that as well, except for a long rain delay Mike Pelfrey relief outing. Our favorite beekeeper threw a one-hit, one-error sixth, then faced five Twins in the seventh, retiring one. Those four outs took 52 pitches, and as you remember, Pelfrey isn’t exactly a fast-paced guy. So that did it for Berrios.

Who else made baseballs go boom for Minnesota? These are their deeds. Brian Dozier was 4-5 with a double. C Mitch Garver, who is still not better than Chris Gimenez (no passed balls, step it up, Mitch) went 3-4 including a double and triple. Hilariously, Ehire Adrianza had two triples, which was funny because he got TOOTBLANed on the first trying to score, and would have been TOOTBLANed on the second if Sox 3B Yolmer Sanchez had held onto the ball.

Buxton left this game in the seventh inning, and LEN3 says the team is “checking his hand after it slipped off the bat.” Hopefully that’s nothing serious, not rabies. White Sox starter Derek Holland left in the sixth, because Chicago was losing.

How’s them standings? Well, Cleveland keeps winning, so the Twins are 7 GB, but they’re only one behind New York for the top wild-card spot. Baltimore and the Los Anaheim Angeles are both 1.5 behind Minnesota.

Your Comments of the Gamethread were provided by Joel Hernandez, who supplied this best-ever HBP video. And Brandon Brooks, who noted Dick Bremer and Roy Smalley were talking about baseball ghost stories.

“Carlos Gomez, another baseball player for the Minnesota Twins also experienced something paranormal a day before his big game. He heard disembodied voices then saw his iPod switch on by itself. The iPod then began vibrating wildly and almost fell to the floor. He put the iPod back on the table when it started doing the same thing again.” -- hauntedrooms.com

That’s so Go-Go.

Early game tomorrow. Robot Roll Call: