Kevin Correia, describe your start against the White Sox with one face.
Yup, that does it.
The Twins starter spent the entire evening in various states of frustration, and it's easy to understand why. He gave up seven runs on 10 hits over four innings, and those 10 hits covered the entire bloop-blast spectrum.
He had nobody but himself to blame for the worst of it, and he knew it. He trailed 3-0 as fast as he could because after giving up a punch single to Adam Eaton and a duck-snort to Alexei Ramirez, he hung a 1-2 slider to Jose Abreu. Commence self-reflexive profanity.
And after the Twins got him a run back in the second, he gave it back as fast as he could with another high slider, leading to another F-bomb.
Frustrating Correia further, the Sox complemented those rockets by giving the Twins a taste of their old Metrodome medicine. They turned the fourth inning into a competition to see who could single the softest.
Adam Dunn started out with an impressively meek RBI single ...
... which looked to be unbeatable, as Dayan Viciedo's blooper couldn't quite compete.
But nobody saw Conor Gillaspie's coming.
Forget this game -- that might be the softest full-swing hit of the year, and that's what gave Correia the Correiaface.
John Danks didn't have such problems on the other side. If he's on the trading block, he didn't hurt himself with his performance, even if his ERA suffered a little. He gave up four runs over seven innings, but allowed just six hits, didn't walk anybody, and threw 66 of 100 pitches for strikes. Considering he took the mound with a 3-0 lead and the Sox led as much as 8-1, Danks could afford to coast to the end of his night.
His pitching was a big reason why the outcome wasn't in doubt. After the Sox scored two in the top of the third to take a 5-1 lead, Danks retired 11 twins in a row -- leaning heavily on his changeup -- to take him into the top of the sixth. The Twins scored two on three singles (infield, shank and seeing-eye) in the sixth, and Oswaldo Arcia's leadoff homer in the seventh nudged him out of quality start territory, but he gave the Sox what they needed.
Bullet points
*Tyler Flowers covered the extremes himself during his three-hit night. The first hit was an infield single down the third-base line, and the second was a classic Tyler Flowers Murder Time missile that registered as the second-fastest homer of the season. He also blistered a double off the wall in left center, further bolstering the theory that he needed the All-Star break more than anybody.
*Viciedo led the way with a four-hit night. Alejandro De Aza was the only White Sox starter to miss out on the 17-hit attack, but he did draw a walk.
*Taylor Thompson gave up his first major league run when Josh Willingham took a high sinker out to left field for a solo shot int the ninth.
Record: 50-54 | Box score | Play-by-play | Highlights