‘s 15th out on the bases of the season. He’s the champ. Mandatory Credit: David Banks-USA TODAY Sports
Four innings in, it was already time to start wondering how Jose Quintana was going to get betrayed and abandoned by his offense. He had struck out five, walked one and barely faced a threat. Then he tried to come inside to Brian Dozier–a man he had struck out twice already on the day before he strode to the plate in the fifth–with a cutter that the second basemen was completely ready for.
The three-run blast to left likely spelled doom for a White Sox offense that hadn’t managed anything off Twins starter Kevin Correia, but the woes had only begun. Joe Mauer hardly needed to be prepared to square up the fat, belt-high changeup that Quintan floated to him. Two blasts in about five minutes, and it was 5-0, and it was also pretty much a done deal.
All Adam Dunn and Conor Gillaspie could do by the ninth inning was ruin the shutout with a solo home runs–Dunn’s 27th and Gillaspie’s 10th– to right. A 5-2 final score admittedly has a much more competitive ring to it, and maybe the Sox could have been more competitive if they had less Kevin Correia to deal with.
After failing to compile even 10 innings of work over his last three starts, and failing to be much of a strikeout pitcher over the last 10 years, Correia blew through a tattered Sox lineup for seven shutout innings. He regularly went up the ladder and blew the Sox hitters away with 91 mph heat, compiling seven whiffs to just one walk, with only three long fly balls to the warning track in his final frame of work politely signaling that it was probably time to call it a day.
On the plus side, Dylan Axelrod managed to break his streak of allowing runs in his last five appearances with his four shutout innings of work. Avisail Garcia picked up a hit in the second inning by beating out a throw to first on a fairly routine groundball to second. Unfortunately he tried to do it again with an even more routine grounder to second his next time up. If you had time, I would tell you great tales of all the line drives Gordon Beckham hit right at people.
The Twins are 9-3 against the White Sox this season.
Team Record: 44-72
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