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After finally figuring out how to ambush Tommy Milone for seven runs in the fourth inning on Saturday, baseball returned to normal for the 2015 White Sox.
They couldn't hit Kyle Gibson ... but the Twins could very much hit Chris Sale.
The game was pretty much over as soon as it started, as Torii Hunter waited out Sale long enough to get a hittable fastball, and he socked the 10th pitch out to left for a three-run homer that gave Minnesota a 4-0 lead in the first inning.
Hunter then helped the Twins tack on two more in the second, hitting the first of two consecutive RBI singles with two outs to put them ahead 6-0. Those runs wouldn't have happened if Adam Eaton didn't take several steps back on a Miguel Cano liner before slipping coming forward and seeing it land where he was originally standing, but it probably wasn't going to be Sale's day regardless.
Chris Sale this season: 7.36 ERA, 30 runs (27 earned) in 33.0 IP vs Twins 2.73 ERA, 47 runs (47 earned) in 154.2 IP vs everyone else
— Christopher Kamka (@ckamka) September 13, 2015
All those two runs did was make it easier to give Sale a short day. Robin Ventura pulled him after three innings in favor of Frankie Montas, who held the Twins to one run over three adventurous innings (four hits, three walks, five strikeouts).
Combined, they pitched 1⅔ fewer innings than Gibson, who teamed up with Casey Fien and Michael Tonkin to throw a five-hitter. The Mizzou product Gibson held the Sox to those five hits and a walk while striking out seven, improving his record to 3-0 with a 1.21 ERA in four starts against Chicago this season.
They did come close to scoring a run, if that means anything. Micah Johnson led off the sixth with a double and moved to third on a groundout. Tyler Saladino followed by hitting a grounder to Trevor Plouffe, who was playing back. Yet it was hit hard enough that Plouffe had plenty of time to make a throw that beat Johnson by plenty. Johnson tried a swim move on his dive and was originally called safe by home plate umpire Marty Foster, but a replay showed that Kurt Suzuki applied the tag while Johnson slid past the plate.
That inning accounted for two of the Sox' four at-bats with runners in scoring position. They were 0-for-4, and thus went quietly to close out their season series with Minnesota at 6-13.
Record: 67-74 | Box score | Play-by-play | Highlights