Twins 2, White Sox 1: Twins win battle of futility

I proclaimed today's lineup to be the worst I have ever seen in my 30 years of watching White Sox baseball. I was wrong... for one batter. Alejandro De Aza led off the bottom of the first with a line shot home run to give the White Sox the quick 1-0 lead.

And that was all of the offensive highlights that will be featured in today's game recap, because it was the only one.

Jake Peavy looked very sharp through the first couple of innings, at one point throwing 18 strikes in a row. In the third though, Brian Dozier hit a one-out single and moved to second when Joe Mauer drew a walk. Josh Willingham followed with a grounder just out of the reach of a diving Alexei Ramirez to score Dozier and tie the game at one.

That is where the two terrible offenses took over. Some people might say that the chilly weather played a factor and others might say that umpire CB Bucknor's wide strike zone held back the offenses. Personally, I don't think it mattered if it was a 90-degree day with an umpire that never called a strike. These two teams can't hit the ball.

The White Sox allowed the Twins to threaten in the eighth when Matt Lindstrom walked Chris Parmelee, Donnie Veal walked Ryan Doumit and Nate Jones walked Aaron Hicks to load the bases with one out. The White Sox gloves came through in a big way when Wilkin Ramirez hit a shot down the line that looked like a sure double. Conor Gillaspie had other ideas as he dove, gloved and threw from one knee to home to get the force out. Dozier followed with a pop up down the right field line that Paul Konerko made a beautiful running over the shoulder catch on.

With the score tied at one in the bottom of the ninth, Konerko hit a one-out single and was removed for pinch-runner Tyler Greene. Greene never moved from first, but the move still made an impact in the game.

In the top of 10th, Ryan Doumit led off with a double off of Hector Santiago. Hicks was unable to move him along, as he popped up the bunt attempt. Eduardo Escobar came up and hit a slow roller to Ramirez who threw low to first. Keppinger was unable to dig the ball out of the dirt and Doumit rounded third and scored as the ball trickled away.

Glen Perkins worked around a one-out walk to Tyler Flowers to record the save.

• Adam Dunn was 0-4 with three pathetic strikeouts and now sports a nifty .098 batting average.
• De Aza had the only big hit of the day for the Sox, but he also struck out in his other four plate appearances and left three on base.
• Keppinger was 0-5 and is now hitting .159.
• The Sox recorded six hits on the day off of Vance Worley and company.
• Our friends at Fox interrupted the broadcast during the game to show us Neil Diamond belt out "Sweet Caroline" to the Boston faithful. At first, I was disgusted that they didn't even keep a split-screen up to show us the action. But really, they probably did us a favor.

Record: 7-10 | Box