Andrew Benintendi had three hits and was involved all three White Sox runs. The rest of the team had zilch. Didn’t matter, because the Twins are really bad, resulting in a 3-2 game and series win for the White Sox.
Benintendi’s first hit was an RBI single in the first, a 78 mph squib through a drawn-in infield that was only drawn in because Bailey Ober walked Sam Antonacci and Munekama Murakami to start the game, with Antonacci taking third on a Miguel Vargas fly out.
Erick Fedde gave up runs in the
first and second to give Minnesota a 2-1 lead, walks being key in both cases because the Twins can’t hit much with Byron Buxton hurt.
Benintendi’s second hit was a leadoff double in the fourth, after which he scored when rookie shortstop Kaelen Culpepper, perhaps having watched too much World Cup, decided to kick around Chase Meidroth’s absolutely routine grounder to make it 2-2.
Benintendi’s third hit was a homer in the sixth, which would stand up as the game-winner:
Meanwhile, Fedde settled down to throw scoreless ball through the fifth, Sean Newcomb had an excellent relief stint of three innings with two singles and no walks, and Bryan Hudson tossed a 1-2-3 ninth for the save.
As his luck — or skill — would have it, Culpepper followed up the costly error by striking out, fouling out, and then ending the game on a grounder to first. Definitely not his day, so let’s be kind and show his one moment of competence — oh, OK, make that excellence — on a Braden Montgomery grounder with two on (via walks, of course) in the seventh.
Twins pitchers tried to help the Sox, issuing six walks, but when you go 1-for-11 with runners in scoring position, the walks don’t help enough. Twins batters tried to help as well, going an even worse 0-for-7 with RISP.
Heck, even Twins catcher Victor Caratini did his best to help the Sox by running his team out of challenges early, one of his calls on a pitch not even close — challenges they could really have used in the eighth and ninth, when two very bad calls against them had to stand.
The win runs the White Sox record to an amazing 72-63, a season-high nine games better than .500. With Cleveland again trailing Kansas City, there’s a chance that the magic number drops to 24 to 23 in another hour or so.
Either way, the White Sox are eyeing a sweep tomorrow, with Jordan Hicks playing the role of opener versus Zebby Mathews, who sports a 4.86 ERA but has had good performances his last two times out.
Sox MVP
Andrew Benintendi: single, double, HR, two RBI, 1 run
Runners-up
When Benintendi had the only hits and RBIs in the game? Fuggedaboudit
Soiled stockings
The rest of the offense, in a team effort
