Carlos Rodon and a reignited offense lead the White Sox to a 6-5 win over the Minnesota Twins.
The White Sox need to keep winning ballgames. With the Cleveland Indians taking a 4-1 win over the Toronto Blue Jays on Thursday, a win that pushed their streak to thirteen consecutive victories, the White Sox should be feeling the pressure to perform. Only nine games remain between now and the All-Star break and nothing would help the White Sox more than riding into the festivities with some positive momentum.
Carlos Rodon entered the game coming off of a start against the Blue Jays in which he went nearly six innings allowing only two earned runs. After a solid couple of starts to begin the season, Rodon struggled to keep his earned run average just below five but a great month of June has brought it down to nearly four, and he is only getting better with each start. Rodon struck out six, walked one, and allowed four earned runs in five and two-thirds innings pitched against the Twins on Thursday.
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Todd Frazier‘s solo home run in the second inning kicked off the scoring for the White Sox. Frazier seems to have taken on the role of catalyst for this offense, despite his .203 batting average, and should have some pretty big power numbers if he continues this type of hitting through the rest of the season. Jose Abreu knocked a run home with a single in the third inning to put the Sox up by two.
The Twins tied it up with back-to-back home runs from Robbie Grossman and Brian Dozier in the top of the fourth inning, but Avisail Garcia gave the Sox the lead again with a run-scoring single in the bottom of the fourth inning and was quickly driven in on a single from recent call-up Matt Davidson. Adam Eaton brought Davidson home on a RBI hit-by-pitch to put the White Sox up 5-2. The Twins inched closer in the sixth inning with a pair of RBI singles from Eduardo Nunez and Dozier, then tied it with another Nunez contribution in the top of the seventh. J.B. Shuck‘s eighth inning single to plate Avisail Garcia gave the White Sox the run they needed to win the ballgame.
The bullpen looked great with the only blemish being an earned run allowed by left-hander Zach Duke. David Robertson collected his twenty-first save of the season (good for a fourth-place tie among Major League closers and third place in the American League) by striking out the side in the bottom of the ninth inning to finish off the White Sox 6-5 win over the Twins.
Twins third baseman Eduardo Nunez has been a thorn in the side of opponents all season and showed just as much in this game by driving in two runs and scoring one of his own. It seems like the Twins always have a player on their roster who manages to play his best when facing the White Sox (hard to forget one Jason Kubel) and so far this season Nunez is that guy. Eduardo is hitting .364 in six games against the White Sox.
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Winning three series in a row is huge for team morale. The ballclub looked like they were having a lot of fun when they were in the middle of their hot start at the beginning of the season, but once things leveled out it was easy to see that the life had been sucked out of the team. Now that they are heating up again the spark is back. Here’s to hoping they can ride this out for a long time. The White Sox will head to Houston to start a three-game series on Friday against the Astros. Houston is 9-1 in their last ten games and have won three in a row. Miguel Gonzalez (1-3, 5.17) will take the mound for the White Sox against Houston’s Mike Fiers (5-3, 4.41).
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