It didn’t look like the feeble-hitting Twins would have much chance against Davis Martin, and that turned out to be right.
And it didn’t look like the Sox would struggle against an emergency starter rushed into action very shortly before game time, and that turned out to be right, too. Especially thanks to the incompetence of Twins manager Derek Shelton.
The Twins offense, which had scored only five runs in regulation in three games against lesser Sox pitching, looked hopeless against Martin, who holds the key to success against Minnesota: complete ownership of Byron Buxton. He did walk Buxton once, but got a K on a pitch around eye-high, running the star’s career against him to 1-for-12 with six strikeouts. He also held the rest of the Twins to two hits, both by Tristan Gray, who drove in the only run on Martin’s tab with a double long after the game was essentially over.
Just to show he’s not just all-throw-and-no-catch, Martin even made a nifty play on Trevor Larnach in the sixth.
Meanwhile, Minnesota had a problem — an even bigger problem than just being the Twins. Shelton, for some reason, decided to give hurler Taj Bradley (5-1) an extra day of rest, even though his last three starts had been excellent, rather than having him face a division rival. Then opener+ Kendry Rojas, ERA 1.26, was pulled due to elbow soreness, and Simeon Woods Richardson was rushed into duty on little warning.
Woods Richardson is mostly a starter, but he’d just pitched two relief innings on Monday and was in no way ready to go. He gave up a run on a Colson Montgomery single after Miguel Vargas walked and stole second in the first. Then Shelton left Woods Richardson in well past his sell-by date in the fourth, even after he’d loaded the bases on two walks and another Montgomery single. To no one’s surprise — except maybe Shelton’s — Tristan Peters then drove in a run on an infield single to give the Sox a 2-0 lead, and Randal Grichuk effectively put the game away with a double to the corner against a Twins offense too lousy to mount a comeback.
That made it 5-0 Sox, and after a Sam Antonacci single and an errant pickoff attempt, a Munetaka Murakami pop-up double stretched the lead to 6-0 after five.
The Twins finally scored on Martin in the sixth on a walk and Gray’s double. Will Venable decided to be kind to them in the seventh and inserted Jordan Leasure, but even he only gave up one run despite being hit hard by four straight batters. Tyler Davis and Grant Taylor each threw a scoreless inning to keep the final 6-2.
The win moves the White Sox to 29-27 and actually gets their run differential back to even for the first time since Opening Day. The Tigers, who haven’t won a game since roughly April Fool’s Day and got clobbered by the Angels today, are headed to town for a three-game series starting with Troy Melton making his second start of the year, going for Detroit vs. Erick Fedde for Chicago tomorrow night.