Twins 9, White Sox 8: Take one for the team

Martin Perez and Ross Detwiler traded zeros through the first two innings today. Raise your hand if you saw that coming. Okay liars, put your hands down.

One of them kept it going through the third, and fortunately, it was the man in black-and-white who imploded in that inning. Ryan LaMarre started it off by bringing us a dose of the LaMagic that endeared him to us in the first place. Mitch Garver followed with a walk, and just a couple batters later, Nelson Cruz was given a free pass as well, to bring up Eddie Rosario. Rosie promptly doubled in Garver, and momentarily doubled the runs on the board. I say momentarily—because the next batter up was Miguel Sano, who nearly turned the baseball inside out. Sano’s jack was estimated to travel 482 feet, just one foot short of the statcast-era record, and close to Jim Thome’s estimated Target Field record of 490 feet.

History lesson aside, the Twins left the third inning with a five to nothing lead. It would not, obviously, stay that way. The Pale Hosiery took a run back in the fourth, with two balls hit in the direction of Ryan LaMarre, that became a Eloy Jimenez double and a James McCann RBI single. They would also add two more in the fifth, due to three singles, a wild pitch, and a sacrifice fly. One more single would chase Perez from the game, and Trevor May ended the fifth with no additional drama.

May’s sixth wasn’t as clean, and he gave up two runs of his own on solo bombas by Adam Engel and DH Zach Collins. The game was tied from that point through the end of the tenth inning. Tyler Duffey, Sergio Romo, Taylor Rogers, and Zach Littell each contributed a scoreless inning to that effort.

Littell was asked to pitch another inning, however. While it was most clean, Tim Anderson added another solo home run to the Sox ledger, and they took a one run lead into the bottom of the inning. The Twins said “nope” to that, and lead off their half of the eleventh with a Jonathan Schoop single. Speedster LaMonte Wade Jr. entered the game to run for Schoop, and was advanced to second on a ground ball by C.J. Cron, and scored from there on a sacrifice fly by Mitch Garver.

Despite the late-inning offensive heroics, this one apparently meant to be. Ryne Harper ended up taking the loss in the 12th, walking a man, and then giving up the game winning homer to Ryan Cordell, whoever that is. Just Kidding!!!!

The Twins struck back in the bottom of 12. Nelson Cruz singled and Eddie Rosario doubled. Marwin Gonzalez then added in a single of his own, plating both runners and tying the game right back up. Luis Arreaz and LaMonte Wade Jr hit their own singles to load the bases, and brought up Ronald Torreyes. With the count at 1-1, and Jose Ruiz pitching for the Sox, a four-seam fastball ran in, and Torreyes wore the 95 MPH pitch.

TWINS WIN!!! They have a five game lead over the Spiders. Miguel Sano also hit his 30th dinger of the season, setting a team record for number of players to pass that threshold

STUDS:

Miguel Sano 1-6, HR

Eddie Rosario 3-6, 2 runs

Luis Arreaz 3-5

Marwin Gonzalez 3-6, run

Ryan LaMarre: HR, LaMagic

Duds

Nah, Twins won!

Roll Call