After years of the White Sox humiliating themselves against the Twins in any number of configurations, I was almost superstitious in my belief that the White Sox would trip all over themselves and help salvage the Twins’ season in this series. Instead — despite a number of very close calls — the White Sox dumped another 5,000 tons of cement on top of the 2016 Twins’ grave, knocking Minnesota down to 0-9 on the season, and I am simultaneously in disbelief and euphoric.
There were missed opportunities, to be sure. Adam Eaton, Melky Cabrera, and Jose Abreu led off the game with consecutive hits to jump out ahead 1-0, although the rally would fizzle as Todd Frazier struck out and Brett Lawrie grounded into a double play. Melky is off to a good start, and hopefully Ventura sees opportunities to bat him second more frequently than day-games-after-night-games when Rollins is given a breather. The other two White Sox runs were basically Avisail Garcia‘s doing — he blasted a solo home run to dead center, and his later leadoff double was converted on a sacrifice fly by Tyler Saladino.
I’ve been one of Avisail’s biggest critics, but to me he only has one viable path left to success, which is selling out for power. He’s never going to be a high on base guy, but if he can actually convert mistake pitches into extra base hits on a semi-regular basis then he may at least have something to offer a major league team. So far this year he has been very timely with his big hits.
Given that the pitching was excellent once again, three runs would turn out to be plenty. Mat Latos showed the same mish-mash of sinkers, splitters, and loopy curveballs as he did in Oakland, but the only run he allowed was when Melky made a horrible non-error allowing Joe Mauer to hit a leadoff triple. Latos actually managed to strike out four in his efficient six innings of work, and while he has certainly appeared in two very pitcher-friendly environments (at Oakland and at Death Slump Minnesota), every single one of his good starts has to be seen as unforeseen good fortune. The fact that he’s led the team to two wins and hasn’t hurt the bullpen in doing so is beyond any positive reasonable expectation at this point.
Matt Albers came on and despite allowing a double, walking a batter, and uncorking both a throwing error and a wild pitch he still didn’t allow a run. Zach Duke came on and retired both lefties he was asked to face. Nate Jones and David Robertson continued to annihilate hitters, as none of the Duke-Jones-Robertson trio allowed a baserunner.
Not everything is actually going perfectly in the technical, extreme sense of the word — but other than the Tigers and Royals keeping pace with the team’s strong start, for right now, White Sox fans would have to try awfully hard to find something to complain about. Like, “Oh jeeze, they’re winning so much that their best relievers are getting used a ton.” It’s a nice change of pace, and doing it while stomping on the Twins’ throat is icing on the cake.
Team Record: 7-2
Lead Photo Credit: Brad Rempel – USA Today Sports Images