The White Sox are not good. One can never be too confident in anything in life, really, but this is a truth no lawyer could argue. They entered play on Friday amid a slow melting—a tedious collapse that already eliminated them from finishing the season with a record above .500. It’s August. Their last win came before the All-Star break on July 10th. It’s August. Their fans deserve some sort of medal for ushering this corpse of a squad to its lethargic death.
Two men and four first names took the mound as Joe Ryan started opposite Davis Martin. Ryan looked sharp early; he punched out the side in order to start the game and followed that showing up with a breezy 2nd. Life wasn’t as easy for Martin. He struck out Willi Castro, walked Trevor Larnach on four pitches, caught Byron Buxton window shopping, and nearly exited the frame unscathed before Royce Lewis pounded a two-run homer to left field.
Martin should have known better: was the most boisterous Twin since Kirby going to announce his return to Target Field in secrecy?
The excitement was short-lived, though, as the White Sox fired back with help from a player they recently acquired at the deadline. Miguel Vargas—an outsider in L.A., an everyday figure in Chicago—worked the count full against Ryan and clobbered a game-tying homer just above the left-center wall.
Yet, that excitement was short-lived as well: Lewis stepped up to the plate the next inning with a pair of runners on and delivered both of them home with a stinging double just over Luis Robert Jr.’s head.
That settled things for a time. Runners reached base, but excitement rarely crescendoed above mezzo forte. Even the outs were of a lazy nature; Jose Miranda drastically overestimated his fleetness and ran into an out at second, while Larnach nearly cracked a three-run homer just for his flyball to land safely in Dominic Fletcher’s glove. So it goes.
The good news was that Ryan wasn’t allowing runs, either. He shed his 3rd-inning struggles to work into the 7th, perhaps a bit more laborious than usual, but still effective; no one scored following Vargas’ homer. Andrew Benintendi chased him from the mound and straight into the appreciative cheers of the grateful home crowd.
Then, the dam broke. Lord, did it break. With two outs in the 8th, Minnesota’s fortune swung wildly in the other direction; Christian Vázquez perfectly plopped a two-run double in-between outfielders, Willi Castro blasted a home run out to right, and Byron Buxton hammered the third multi-RBI hit of the frame, depositing an offering to Chicago’s bullpen. The flurry shot the score to 10-2. Suddenly, Jhoan Durán could take the night off.
Trevor Richards entered instead and bucked the curse of Kevin Jepsen (continued by Sam Dyson) of new Twins relievers imploding in their first outing. He did exactly what he needed to do—and the Twins’ win was secured after just nine pitches.
Notes:
Byron Buxton hit his 129th career home run. He is three away from tying Jacque Jones for the 15th-most in Twins history.
Joe Ryan’s seven strikeouts give him 523 in his MLB career. He is four punchouts away from tying Jim Merritt and Scott Erickson for the 23rd most in Twins history.
Royce Lewis has eight 4+ RBI games in his MLB career.
Jorge Alcalá lowered his season ERA to 1.60.
Post-Game Interview:
