Twins 5, White Sox 4: A Bummer of a Game

The game originally went as expected — the White Sox bats continued to perform, this time off of rookie Bailey Ober. And Lance Lynn, though hardly dominant, largely kept the Twins hitters guessing. Jake Lamb (maybe that wasn’t expected) and Yasmani Grandal both contributed homers, and heading into the fourth it was a 4-0 Sox lead. All was right in the world.

Then, Miguel Sanó, who had been in a season-long slump, started getting some insanely good fastballs to hit. He didn’t miss them. He went on to hit two solo home runs off of Lynn, keeping the Twins close by making it a 4-2 ballgame before the inevitable finally happened.

With Yermín Mercedes up to bat, Tyler Duffey entered the ballgame and promptly threw his first pitch behind Mercedes. Everyone saw it coming, and the umpires ejected Duffey after a brief meeting and later ejected Twins skipper Rocco Baldelli after the he came out to defend his player. Besides Tim Anderson, who heckled the ejected Twins players, the Sox dugout was largely quiet, while the Twins and their fans were all the more raucous from that point on.

After a solid inning from Michael Kopech, Tony La Russa brought in Aaron Bummer, and that’s where the wheels completely fell off. Bummer walked Jorge Polanco and then gave up a two-run home run to Sanó (capping the first three-home run game of his career) to tie it up.

With the mist and rain continuing to fall, things became more problematic by the time Sox closer Liam Hendriks took the mound. His cleats caked in mud, Hendriks didn’t have much on any of his pitches that weren’t fastballs. Coming in for Bummer in the bottom of the ninth with a runner already on, Hendriks was able to get the first two outs, only to give up an RBI line drive to Jorge Polanco to end the ballgame.

It was a gut-punch ending, but the White Sox have an opportunity to salvage the series tomorrow. Game time is at 12:10 p.m. CT, as Lucas Giolito faces off against Matt Shoemaker. Bill Meincke has the recap, with the Six Pack of Stats coming from our stopper, Janice Scurio.