White Sox Drop One to Twins Late
Neither Jose Quintana or Cole De Vries had their good stuff today and both offenses jumped on the board early posting 4 runs a piece in the 1st. A standard baseball game takes 9 innings to complete, and though all indications pointed to these 9 innings holding a heck of a lot of runs the scoring was kept to a minimum from there on out. When the final frame rolled around the score was knotted at 6 awaiting someone to break the tie. Unfortunately, they did.
White Sox (55-47): 6
Twins (44-58): 7
De Aza welcomed himself back to the lineup by reminding us how valuable he is in the number one spot. He worked De Vries deep into the count before earning himself a base hit. After Paul Konerko and Alex Rios both notched hits, the former of which scored De Aza for the first run of the game, A.J. Pierzynski did some self-welcoming back as well. He took the first pitch he saw and promptly deposited it in the seats to give the Sox a 4-0 lead. As it would turn out, a short lived 4-0 lead; the Twins had a big first planned for themselves too, bringing their 4 in via a flurry of base hits.
From there the game slowed down, the Twins added a pair in the 3rd while the Sox spaced out a pair, bringing 1 run in both the 4th and the 8th. Jose Quintana, despite having given up 6 runs (only 4 were earned) in his first 3 innings managed to hang in the game through the 7th, saving his line on the night from being a nightmare.
Bottom of the 9th, execution bit the Sox. Brett Myers gave up a lead-off hit to Danny Valencia and when Brian Dozier laid down the sacrifice bunt, A.J. was unable to make the throw to first and it shot into right field, setting up a second and third with no outs situation. Jamie Carroll sent a fly ball out to Alex Rios and Alexi Casilla, pinch running for Valencia scored the winning run.
Plus: A very gutty performance out of the 23 year-old Jose Quintana. Giving up the big runs early it’s easy to let the fire burn but Quintana managed to not only hang in there and save the bullpen but keep the Twins off the board in the process, enabling the White Sox to edge their way back in the game.
Minus: It was again an Alexei Ramirez error that had the Sox giving up unnecessary runs. Again on a play that should be made, it makes one wonder it’s not starting to creep into Alexei’s head making it more difficult for him to convert on the easy plays. Ramirez remains one of the finer defensive shortstops in the game, so we can only hope that he shakes it off and continues to be.
Player of the Game
Alejandro De Aza – .390 Win Expectancy added