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Twins 6, White Sox 3: A fitting finish to the first half

Jake Peavy pitching when he shouldn't. Alex Rios making bad decisions. Adam Dunn going hitless. An unheralded pitcher having an easy day for himself.

Ladies and gentlemen, your first-half Chicago White Sox!

Peavy, who said his arm isn't as fresh as he'd like, certainly looked off. His velocity was down and he couldn't hit the mitt -- and as a result, two Rochester Red Wings were able to put him on the ropes in the fourth. After a pair of walks to Rene Tosoni and Tsuyoshi Nishioka, the .180-hitting Drew Butera was able to line an OK slider to center for the game's first run.

One batter later, Jason Repko smashed a hanging, center-cut changeup past Mark Teahen into the corner. That gave Minnesota a 2-0 lead after four, and Peavy didn't survive the fifth. He gave up two singles, a sac fly, and two more singles before Ozzie Guillen pulled the pug after the 90th pitch. Will Ohman ended up getting a 4-3-6 double play when Paul Konerko caught Tosoni straying off second, but that put a fifth run on the board for the Twins.

 

That would be enough for Anthony Swarzak, who threw a lot of first-pitch curves for strikes and took advantage of Larry Vanover's wide zone the way Peavy couldn't. Juan Pierre led off with a single, and the Sox didn't collect their second hit until Rios' one-out single in the fifth.

The Sox did figure out how to get to Swarzak in the sixth, as Paul Konerko grounded a single to center to spoil the shutout in the sixth. But after walking Dunn, Swarzak struck out Carlos Quentin to escape with a quality start.

It took Ron Gardenhire using his worst reliever for the Sox to finally string together good at-bats. Rios led off the seventh with a walk, scored on A.J. Pierzynski's double, and Gordon Beckham replaced him at second with a double of his own. That narrowed the Minnesota lead to 5-3, but the Sox never threatened again.

Sergio Santos helped put it out of reach when he threw a wild pitch on a slider in the dirt with a runner on third. The ball bounced straight back to Pierzynski, and if only he could've secured the ball before going to apply the tag, the Sox would've only faced a two-run deficit entering the bottom of the ninth.

Notes:

*Rios twice missed the cutoff man on ill-advised throws home. The first one didn't make a difference, but the second one may have allowed the fifth run to score, since he scored on that 4-3-6 double play.

*The Sox are now 7-28 against the Twins in their last 35 games.

Record: 44-48 | Box score | Play-by-play