The Chicago White Sox dropped the opening game of the four-game series with the Minnesota Twins, and one guy, in particular, had a lot to do with it.
The Chicago White Sox are showing that they are a vulnerable team in the second half of the season this year. Two of their five best hitters are out of the lineup and have been for a little bit now. That doesn’t make anyone feel sorry for you, however. The Minnesota Twins came to Guaranteed Rate Field and got the four-game series off to a rocky start for the White Sox.
They defeated the White Sox by a final score of 10-3. It was a lousy showing by the team as a whole, but one player, in particular, is the main reason that the Twins won this game. Nelson Cruz, at 39 years old, hit three home runs off of Lucas Giolito within the first five innings. It wasn’t a perfect outing by Giolito by any means as his stat line was 5 IP, 7 H, 7 ER, 2BB, 7K, 4 HR, but most of that was damage done by Cruz, who had his first career three home run game.
Yoan Moncada stayed hot, as he launched his 19th home run of the season to tie the game in the second inning. Moncada is amazing, that we all know. But now, he is starting to show that he is consistently going to be one of the best players on this team and one of the best players in the MLB for that matter.
The White Sox need to be more wary of Nelson Cruz in their next game when they’re right back at it against the Twins on Friday night. Dylan Cease is on for his fifth career start. He will face Michael Pineda of the Twins. This is hopefully a game that Cease can match his performance from his MLB debut a few weeks ago. The White Sox need to end this little skid here soon, and no better time than Friday night. The rest of this series is going to be tough, but they can hopefully gain some steam. They’ve played well against the Twins at points this year, so hopefully, they can get it back.