Remember the kind of heartening loss that Dayan Viciedo steered the White Sox away from on Saturday night? Well, we saw one to a lesser degree this afternoon.
At least if you weren't counting on Hector Noesi playing a significant role on next year's Sox.
Noesi's problems with the long ball surfaced once again, as he gave up a pair of homers that accounted for three of his five runs allowed over 6⅔ innings. The Twins didn't seem to have much of a problem picking up Noesi's stuff, mostly because he wasn't particularly fine in the strike zone.
(In Noesi's defense, one of those five runs scored courtesy of Ronald Belisario, whose first pitch turned into an RBI double that brought home an inherited runner in the seventh.)
That run was too much for the Sox to overcome, after they rallied from a 4-0 hole earlier in the game. They opened the fourth with four consecutive hits off Trevor May, including RBI singles by Jose Abreu and Conor Gillaspie. May stanched the cut by striking out the side and holding the score to 4-2, but an Adrian Nieto solo shot in the fifth reduced the Minnesota lead to one run.
The RBI double allowed by Belisario returned control of the game back to the Twins, and Matt Lindstrom gave up another run in the ninth when Brian Dozier singled and stole two bases before scoring on a sac fly.
Fresh off a blown save, Glen Perkins had a three-run cushion to work with, but it quickly became a two-run gap when Abreu golfed a slider into the White Sox bullpen for his 35th home run of the year. Marcus Semien followed with a pinch-hit single between three Twins in shallow right, and two batters later, Michael Taylor provided a scare with a flyout to the warning track in right.
Still, Viciedo came to the plate with a chance to kill Perkins again. This time, he could only muster a routine flyout to center, and so the Sox couldn't come away with the sweep. That's not the worst thing at this time of year.
Bullet points:
*May struck out 10 White Sox over six innings, including a silver sombrero for Avisail Garcia, which was one reason it wasn't a great loss.
*The Sox played fine defense, with Alexei Ramirez starting a slick 6-4-3 double play from one knee, and Viciedo committing to a fly down the line and making a sliding catch.
Record: 68-81 | Box score | Play-by-play | Highlights