The Chicago White Sox, the worst team in baseball, were on the verge of beating the Twins Tuesday night at Target Field, but then Trevor Larnach hit a two-run blast to inch closer to the Sox, Byron Buxton hit a solo shot to tie the game and Alex Kirilloff won it in the bottom of the ninth with a single to right field for the 6-5 walk-off win.
The Twins are now 9-13 and go for the series win on Wednesday. The White Sox, meanwhile, fell to 3-20.
Although the Sox look terrible, starting pitcher Erick Fedde delivered some major league stuff, cutting through the Twins like a hot knife through butter or margarine or whatever your choice of spread is with 11 strikeouts across six innings.
Pablo Lopez didn’t measure up, allowing three runs on four hits over four innings with two walks and six strikeouts on 76 pitches. The big blow came when he served up a three-run homer to the Sox’s Eloy Jimenez.
The Sox took a 3-1 lead, the Twins cut it to 3-2, the Sox regained the lead to make it 5-2 and then Larnach, Buxton and Kirilloff went to work to get the win. Alex struck out four times before finally delivering the game-winning hit, which must have felt pretty rewarding. Ryan Jeffers also dinked a double to move the runners along.
Joe Ryan gets the ball Wednesday.
Extra innings…
-The Twins scored their six runs on 10 hits. Buck and Larnach accounted for half of that total.
-The situation on the South Side is not good and likely will fuel more calls for owner Jerry Reinsdorf to sell the team. Talking to a friend on Tuesday, we have come up with an ideal buyer: Former President Barack Obama, who is a well-known White Sox fan. Pair Obama with an investor, or investors, and I think his ownership would send the right message to the city, the team and fans.
-A struggling Twins team and a terrible White Sox club aren’t exactly going to fill the seats, which explains why only 11,000 fans showed up to Target Field. In the end, however, they saw a pretty good game.