Abreu’s moon shot grounds Twins, 6-4

Holy man, listen, we were not expecting this at all.

Sure, Minnesota is reeling after their first-half fire, but between the rough start to this game for the Chicago White Sox and the fact that the Twins have played better baseball all season long made this decisive, 6-4 win a surprise.

And that a key point of execution — what ended up as the decisive run — came in the seventh inning, when Yolmer Sánchez took a called strike, fouled four straight balls off, then bunted an eye-level pitch straight back to pitcher Kyle Gibson for a suicide squeeze par excellence. WOW.

And that run wasn’t possible without a leadoff double from Tim Anderson (1-for-4, holding at .330) and a key “sacrifice” from James McCann, slapping a 1-1, tailor-made outside fastball for a ground out to second base, moving TA over.

Four innings earlier, José Abreu clocked a TITANIC blast to the “Home Run Porch” somewhere near St. Paul, a three-run clobbering that put the White Sox up, 4-2.

And another key play came in the sixth, when Ryan Goins (also 3-for-4 with the bat, two runs) pegged out C.J. Cron at home plate — exquisite tag from McCann — for the second out of the inning, with the game 4-2.

Iván Nova was ... effective. I guess? Is that what we call 10 hits in just 5 ¹⁄₃ innings, two earned, one walk, two Ks? Crazy-effective, helluva way to even a record 9-9 on the season. Nova’s ERA for the season is now down to 4.47.

There was one more killer play in the game today ... yeah, you know what’s coming ...

WILD SQUIRREL OFFENSE!

The White Sox are in position to take the series tomorrow night, same time. Reynaldo López takes the bump in a NBCSC+ game.