Twins 3, White Sox 2: Climb in the Prime Time

It’s always nice to show up for the national broadcast.

The Twins levied a comeback victory over the Chicago White Sox on Saturday night, much to the presumed chagrin of Jason Benetti, who’s either driving home bummed tonight or taking solace in the fact that each subsequent Chicago loss is one step closer to yet another organizational overhaul.

Sonny Gray got his blowup inning out of the way early tonight, and kept the damage to a relative minimum. Chicago would score the game’s first two runs, both coming in the third, as the Minnesota defensive side unraveled a bit, allowing a delayed double-steal of home and a four-single inning that credited the White Sox with a pair.

But an increasingly-awake offense battled right back to cut the lead in half in the home frame. Doubles from Christian Vazquez and Carlos Correa got a run back, though crucial strikeouts of Edouard Julien and Alex Kirilloff kept the Sox in control.

Gray would go on to finish six strong innings, striking out four, and lowering his ERA to 3.15 on the season.

Minnesota was kept off the scoreboard through the middle innings, but finally, the home seventh arrived.

With Keynan Middleton into the game and Cease out, the Twins got cooking with a one-out rally. Byron Buxton walked his way aboard, then showed off his still-red-hot sprint speed and taking scoring position with a swipe of second.

Then, it was dinky-doink time.

Kyle Farmer dribbled an absolute bubble bonker up the third baseline and wound up reaching safely, setting up Christian Vazquez — “Vazky,” as Trevor Plouffe has gotten me used to calling him, launched an aggressively towering double in reviewable territory of the left-field wall. It stayed in, but the Twins had tied the game.

With runners at second and third and one out, the bunt play was on for Michael A. Taylor, who offered twice (on 0-0 and later on 2-1) but didn’t get one down either time. He’d take another ball to fill the count between hard-fought two-strike fouls, and ultimately got a sinker down the middle, sent it back up the box, and earned himself the game-winning RBI single.

Rocco’s Magical Arm Barn got the job done to close out the game.

Jordan Balazovic had already tossed a scoreless seventh; Griffin Jax struck out one in a scoreless eighth, and Jhoan Duran brought us a rare episode of The Jhoan Duran Experience, allowing two ninth-inning singles in an airtight game, but striking out three — the last of which was dealt at 103 to Luis Robert Jr.

The series, and weekend, wrap up tomorrow - the Sox and Twins close out their series at 1:10 tomorrow before ringing in the Seattle Mariners for another set of games. Hope to see you there!

STUDS:

SS Carlos Correa (2-for-2, RBI, 2 BB, 2B)

C Christian Vazquez (2-for-3, R, RBI, 2 2B)

DUDS:

NO DUDS! TWINS WIN! TWINS WIN!