Another One Dropped
By Matt Adams
Building upon their 14 singles Wednesday night, the White Sox opened up the game with 3 more in the 1st inning of the series opener against the Twins, which translated into 2 runs. Singles don’t get it done unless you hit a ton of them, and the Sox came up short at Target Field as the Twins walked them off in the 9th.
White Sox (46-74): 3
Twins (54-65): 4
Oops. (Jesse Johnson-USA TODAY Sports)
In the 3rd inning the Sox got it done without any singles, or a hit of any kind. De Aza walked to lead off, managed not to get thrown out on the basepaths stealing second, advancing on a groundout and tagging to score on an Alexei Ramirez sacrifice fly.
Andre Rienzo’s cruise through the lineup ended in the 5th inning when the Twins’ second hit was a 416 foot bomb off of the bat of Trevor Plouffe. The shot was bookended by warning track shots out to right field, both corralled by Avisail Garcia. That would be his only earned run, though another would cross on his watch an inning later, unearned thanks to another error on Alexei Ramirez. Nate Jones came in to pitch the 8th and was unable to hold the lead for the Pale Hose. Joe Mauer, having reached on a double was plated on a Justin Morneau single despite a close play at the plate.
The 9th inning brought everybody’s favorite-ish reliever Ramon Troncoso to the mound. Trevor Plouffe knocked a single to lead it off, advanced to second on a passed ball by Josh Phegley. After Chris Colabello worked a walk Clete Thomas laid down a poor bunt that got Plouffe forced out at third but Chris Herman followed with a single to right that scored both baserunners for a White Sox loss.
Plus: An extra base hit! The White Sox added 8 more singles to their record and almost went another day without anything bigger than that until Paul Konerko knocked a double in the 8th, his second hit of the game.
Minus: Again, errors. Again errors from Alexei, or Alexei-6 as he’s coming to be known. The Ramirez gaffe in the 6th allowed a run to score that bridged the Twins to the tying a run a couple of innings later. Alexei’s blunders with the glove and Alejandro De Aza’s blunders on the basepaths are going to have a tough battle once the year is over for most annoying occurrences of 2013.
Player of the Game:
Donnie Veal – .173 WPA
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