Floyd, Rios Crack the Twins Code

Dominant in stretches, Gavin Floyd finally got that Twins monkey (pair of monkeys?) off of his back. Gavin allowed 5 hits over 7 innings and retired 9 in a row at one stretch. He also struck out 9 Twins batters while walking none of them. Heading into Tuesday night Gavin had lost 8 straight games against Minnesota and also experienced his worst outing of 2012 in the last contest he participated in between the two clubs. As far as the issue that’s been haunting the Sox during good pitching performances, Alex Rios took care of that by sending a soaring shot into the second deck in left field.

White Sox (39-35): 3
Twins (30-43): 2

Everybody get happy! Gavin Floyd has now had 2 consecutive successful starts! A pitcher’s wins preferring gentleman would surmise that he’s a better pitcher than Jake Peavy and Chris Sale. He’s not, of course, not right now, but the return to form for Gavin is much appreciated. As is often the case, Floyd’s success depends heavily on the action his curve ball is getting and there was an awful lot of break in it Tuesday night. He went to it often and was effective with it. You don’t notch 9 strikeouts by accident. Unless you’re Adam Dunn in extra innings

Alex Rios displayed much of the skill that has a tendency to sit dormant too much of the time. In addition to his mammoth blast, Rios reached on a single, stole a base and then scored from second on a duck snort by Alexei, which would ultimately prove invaluable. He also used those wheels in the field to cover the ground necessary to convert outs in all that space at Target Field.

Floyd’s lead was put into the hands of the luckless Matt Thornton for the 8th in order to face the top of the Twins lineup. He managed a perfect inning with the help of new third baseman Derek Je—I mean Kevin Youkilis, who made a running, jumping throw to first getting Joe Mauer to end the inning. In the 9th, Addison Reed: Closer did his job inasmuch as he got the save. It wasn’t pretty, a couple of hits, a walk and a hit batter got the Twins on the board but Reed held the lead and the Sox are up in the Central by 1.5 games.

Plus: Guys doing what they are supposed to be doing. The above words are pretty heavily dedicated to Alex Rios and Gavin Floyd because they performed as they are expected to.

Minus: Sure would be nice to have another offensive explosion sometime soon. 3 runs got the job done behind Floyd’s gem this time, but I want to be assured that the bats still work. Specifically Adam Dunn’s.

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