Twins 8, White Sox 2: 5 Home Runs Bury White Sox, Secure Series Win

[Jamie Cameron]

The Twins put on an offensive showcase on Tuesday night, touching up White Sox pitching for five home runs. The win secured the series and the Twins moved to 5-0 against the White Sox in 2022.

 

Box Score
Starting Pitcher: Josh Winder 5.0 IP, 7 H, 2 R, 2 ER, 2 BB, 3 SO (77 pitches, 49 strikes)
Homeruns: Max Kepler (9), Jose Miranda (6), Jorge Polanco (10), Alex Kirilloff 2 (3)
Top 3 WPA: Jorge Polanco .159, Jose Miranda .133, Josh Winder .108
Win Probability Chart (via FanGraphs)

On Tuesday evening, after an extra-inning win to open the series, the Twins resumed their three-game set in Chicago. Here’s how they lined up.

Josh Winder got the start for the Twins after being added to the taxi squad on Monday. In the corresponding move, Chris Archer was added to the 15-day injured list with a hip strain. Archer’s IL stint means that each of the Twins seven primary 2022 starters have spent at least one stint on the IL, with Gray and Ober having spent two, and Chris Paddack being out for the season.

Michael Kopech looked extremely shaky for the White Sox early. He walked three in the first inning, loading the bases, but recovered to get out of the jam unscathed. The Twins struck first in the third inning. Max Kepler hit a center-cut fastball over the right-field wall for his ninth home run of the year.

The Twins added two more in the fourth inning. Alex Kirilloff laced a single before Jose Miranda crushed a hanging breaking ball 105 mph into the left-field bleachers for a two-run home run, continuing his impressive hitting. Notably, Miranda looked much more comfortable getting the start at third base, making several sharp plays in the first few innings.

The White Sox got a run back in the bottom of the fourth inning. A Luis Robert single was followed by a Yoan Moncada double to cut the lead to 3-1. The Twins did not let up on Kopech however. In the sixth inning Jorge Polanco hit a two-run home run off Kopech (after a Kepler single), and Alex Kirilloff went back to back. In the fifth inning alone, Kopech gave up three consecutive batted balls of at least 104 mph. While his command was poor, the Twins did an excellent job taking full advantage, knocking him out of the game in the fifth inning.

Winder ran into trouble in the bottom of the fifth inning, surrendering a double and single to lead off the inning. Winder managed to rebound well from any trouble he ran into, limiting the damage to just one run and leaving the game after pitching five innings of two-run baseball. While he returned to the rotation through injury, it’s pretty clear, stuff-wise, that Winder needs to be with the MLB team permanently. Whether that is in the rotation or in the bullpen, he’s a contributor.

Caleb Thielbar relieved Winder in the sixth inning and was dominant, striking out the side on just 11 pitches. In the bottom of the sixth, Alex Kirilloff took Reynaldo Lopez deep to left center field for his second home run of the game.

Tyler Duffey ran into trouble in the bottom of the seventh. He gave up back-to-back hits to lead off the inning, before striking out Tim Anderson. Andrew Vaughn then lined into a double play on a batted ball with a .730 xBA. Trevor Megill entered in the eighth inning and got one out before the heavens opened. The game went into a 35 minute rain delay. When the teams returned, Jharel Cotton took over in relief for Minnesota and Kyle Garlick entered as a replacement for Max Kepler.

The White Sox put Josh Harrison on the mound for the ninth inning. Remarkably, Jose Miranda grounded into a double play after back to back singles to keep the score locked at 8-2. Jharel Cotton returned to finish the game, leaving the bullpen in a good spot for the series finale, where the Twins will go for the sweep. The win moved Minnesota to 47-37 on the season. Cleveland lost to Detroit, so the Twins lead is 4.5 games over the Guardians, and 6.5 games over the White Sox.

Bullpen Usage Chart

	FRI	SAT	SUN	MON	TUE	TOT
Cotton	0	38	0	0	21	59
Duffey	0	0	0	13	18	31
Pagán	0	10	0	18	0	28
Jax	0	0	0	26	0	26
Thielbar	12	0	0	0	11	23
Duran	0	0	0	20	0	20
Moran	0	0	18	0	0	18
Megill	0	0	0	0	2	2

Next Up
On Wednesday, the Twins will conclude their series against the White Sox. Joe Ryan goes for Minnesota against Lance Lynn for Chicago. First pitch is 1:10 CT.

Postgame Interviews

 

 

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[BH67]

My goodness, the White Sox are in complete disarray.  Better still, the Twins are taking full advantage of it.

[big dog]

Twins are 4-1 in July. Looking good!

[Lasorda_This_Out]

Solid win! Final Wes Johnson thoughts:

Odd hire?

Odd resignation?

Odd man?

Go Twins!

[Jamie Cameron]

9 minutes ago, big dog said:

Twins are 4-1 in July. Looking good!

Much more enjoyable than June so far! Offense was clicking tonight!

[Cap'n Piranha]

The Twins have an off day on Thursday, and another on Monday.  Tomorrow needs to be a game where the best effort is made to win.  Buxton in center, Correa at DH.  Put the boot down, and do not give this White Sox team any oxygen.

[Squirrel]

It was so weird to see a position player pitch when the Sox were down by only 6 runs. I mean, yeah, okay, that's a ways behind but not insurmountable; it's not like it was a blowout, but just seems as if they conceded the game.

[Rosterman]

With an off-day for Winder's next appearance, he could comfortably pitch out of the pen on, say, Sunday, and still egt a start in before the All-Star break, as could Archer.

[Cap'n Piranha]

4 minutes ago, Rosterman said:

With an off-day for Winder's next appearance, he could comfortably pitch out of the pen on, say, Sunday, and still egt a start in before the All-Star break, as could Archer.

More likely they give Archer the extra 5 days—with only 10 games left before the break, but 12 days in which to play them, why not let every pitcher currently in the rotation make 2 starts, rather than shuffle the chairs.

On a separate note, an Arraez, Buxton, Lewis, Miranda, Kiriloff top 5 of the order for the next few years looks awfully good right now.

[Mark G]

I think we are going to look back on this late in the season and chalk up the 4th of July as the day/week the division was pretty much decided.  Cleveland getting swept by Detroit in the DH (and today), and Chicago falling weakly to us has begun the separation I don't think is going to be closed.   This has turned out to be an extremely weak division, and I just do not see any of them capable of making a run.  Stay the course, beat the teams we are supposed to beat, and set our sights on October.  But make the moves between now and the deadline to give us a chance once we get there.  Because we may be the best of the Central, but we cannot compete with the best of the rest.  Focus, FO!  Get it done!

[William K Johnson]

Sorry, but I am not yet sold on Miranda.   The bad throw on a routine play that almost pulled Arraez off first had me concerned when Luis acted if he had stretched something on the play.   That is the last thing we need is to lose the batting leader for an extended period of time.   Yes, I realize that he hit a critical home run but also saw him ground into a double-play against a position player.    I am lot more comfortable with Urschela at third.

[umterp23]

Good thing we hit HR's to win the game last night.  Once again blow a chance to score in the 1st. Two opportunities: 1st and 2nd with one out.  Kepler goes down looking on 3 straight pitches.  Another walk to load the bases with two outs and Kiriloff goes down looking on 3 pitches.  We continue to waste early game opportunities which will come back and bite us in the you know what.  Good one against a bad team, need to go for the sweep and bury teams when you get the chance.  Go Twins

[prouster]

19 minutes ago, umterp23 said:

Good thing we hit HR's to win the game last night.  Once again blow a chance to score in the 1st. Two opportunities: 1st and 2nd with one out.  Kepler goes down looking on 3 straight pitches.  Another walk to load the bases with two outs and Kiriloff goes down looking on 3 pitches.  We continue to waste early game opportunities which will come back and bite us in the you know what.  Good one against a bad team, need to go for the sweep and bury teams when you get the chance.  Go Twins

They won 8-2. Kirilloff hit two homers. I think the other stuff can be forgiven. 

[jmlease1]

Kirilloff sure looks like he's past his problems with the wrist. He's hitting like we hoped again, and I think he's going to be a force in the lineup for the rest of the year. (If he stays healthy. really hoping his wrist issues are in the past and he gets to have a good run of health)

Kopech had been pitching pretty well for the ChiSox, so it was good to see the Twins handle him. You have to wonder if the first inning struggles impacted his effectiveness even though he wriggled out of the jam. I'm not ready to write-off the ChiSox yet; they're starting to get healthy again (Jiminez could be a difference-maker, a healthy Grandal could be a difference-maker...) and they still have a lot of pitching talent so you never know. But they're not playing well and I don't think LaRussa is going to help (having the home crowd chant "Fire Tony" can't be good). Would love to see the sweep.

[Whitey333]

Great win Twins.  Let's sweep them on Wednesday!  Hope Rocco uses a common sense regular lineup to face Lance Lynn.  It's our chance to bury the Sox.  No one needs a day off when they whole team is off on Thursday.  Besides Joe Ryan deserves to have his regular fielders behind him.  Go Twins!!

[MinnInPa]

8 hours ago, Cap'n Piranha said:

The Twins have an off day on Thursday, and another on Monday.  Tomorrow needs to be a game where the best effort is made to win.  Buxton in center, Correa at DH.  Put the boot down, and do not give this White Sox team any oxygen.

agreed ..this cant be the B lineup..this , to me, is a game you go all out to win..not just be happy with a series win. 

[teachercoach]

Baseball always comes down to pitching.  Go back to 6/23 and 1-0 win v. Guardians, that's 13 games in a row where pitching has got thru the 7th inning with 3runs or less.  Yes, there were 3 bullpen meltdowns.  But continued performance like this leads to consistent series wins.

Scoring 8 runs last night with 'A-B-C' going 1-13 is big positive also.

Enjoy every day!

[Dman]

I was wondering if there was something wrong with Kopek.  Maybe I remember wrong but I thought his fastball was usually 96-97 and last night it seemed to be more 93-94.  Also on the Kepler and Polanco Home Runs the placement of those pitches and the pitches themselves were poor.  Maybe others are right that the first inning just took too great a toll and his stuff just wasn't as good as normal.  At any rate I had the game penciled in as a loss but should have known the better the pitcher the better the Twins offense.  Kind of crazy but they have done well against some really good pitchers this year.

The ABC top of the order went 1 for 13 with 2 walks so thankfully the other six accounted for another 11 hits 4 of which were home runs.  The two young hitters Miranda and Kirilloff were really impressive.  They are making this lineup very deep with dangerous bats.  Really nice to see that home run power return for Kirilloff especially opposite field.  If he heats up like he did in minor league ball he could be an all-star caliber player at the MLB level.

Winder was rock solid again.  The starting pitching has been there this year.  If the pen can hold on or improve this team could be dangerous.

[Trov]

The second HR of Alex Kirilloff was so pretty.  Breaking ball low and away, and he just lined it to LC gap for a HR.  That is great hitting.  He was looking away, got his pitch and drove it.  He is looking every bit the hitter we were hoping he would be since he call back.  He hits to all fields with power and line drives.  I have high hopes for him. 

[stringer bell]

5 hours ago, Dman said:

I was wondering if there was something wrong with Kopech. Maybe I remember wrong but I thought his fastball was usually 96-97 and last night it seemed to be more 93-94.  Also on the Kepler and Polanco Home Runs the placement of those pitches and the pitches themselves were poor.  Maybe others are right that the first inning just took too great a toll and his stuff just wasn't as good as normal.  At any rate I had the game penciled in as a loss but should have known the better the pitcher the better the Twins offense.  Kind of crazy but they have done well against some really good pitchers this year.

The ABC top of the order went 1 for 13 with 2 walks so thankfully the other six accounted for another 11 hits 4 of which were home runs.  The two young hitters Miranda and Kirilloff were really impressive.  They are making this lineup very deep with dangerous bats.  Really nice to see that home run power return for Kirilloff especially opposite field.  If he heats up like he did in minor league ball he could be an all-star caliber player at the MLB level.

Winder was rock solid again.  The starting pitching has been there this year.  If the pen can hold on or improve this team could be dangerous.

Agreed, I think there might be something not right with Kopech.  I think his highest velocity was 95 and many were in the 92-94 range, now just average fastballs. 

Actually, the bottom six hit five homers that accounted for all eight runs. Almost 2000 feet in the five long balls, none of them were cheap. At the beginning of the season, I said I thought Kirilloff's floor was Will Clark defense and Mark Grace offense while his ceiling was Will Clark offense and Mark Grace defense. I still believe that to be the case. Adding AK and Miranda to the lineup makes a pretty good lineup much better and deeper. 

[Alex Schieferdecker]

This year's White Sox have an uncanny resemblance to last year's Twins.

I have kept waiting for them to find their groove and start mounting a challenge to the division, but at this point that looks less likely than them getting passed by the Tigers and dumped into fourth place.

Anyway Josh Winder is good, Alex Kirilloff is good, Jose Miranda is good.

[Squirrel]

1 hour ago, jmlease1 said:

Kopech had been pitching pretty well for the ChiSox, so it was good to see the Twins handle him

Until last night Kopech had only given up a total of 5 home runs all season

[Squirrel]

4 hours ago, stringer bell said:

Agreed, I think there might be something not right with Kopech.  I think his highest velocity was 95 and many were in the 92-94 range, now just average fastballs

On the Sox broadcast last night they were wondering the same thing. Said he had some knee soreness a bit ago and wondered if that was having an affect. Kopech also indicated in the post-game that something mechanical was off.

[TwinsAce]

10 hours ago, Cap'n Piranha said:

On a separate note, an Arraez, Buxton, Lewis, Miranda, Kiriloff top 5 of the order for the next few years looks awfully good right now.

...And maybe, just maybe, Correa too?

Or honestly Larnach is a pretty good 5-7 batter.

[MMMordabito]

45 minutes ago, Squirrel said:

On the Sox broadcast last night they were wondering the same thing. Said he had some knee soreness a bit ago and wondered if that was having an affect. Kopech also indicated in the post-game that something mechanical was off.

It's probably best for them to put him on the IL and let him heal.  I have no problem with them going to a lesser pitcher to fill out their rotation for awhile.  Lopez is probably the best option.  He has great career numbers against the Twins from my POV. ?

[Cap'n Piranha]

1 hour ago, TwinsAce said:

...And maybe, just maybe, Correa too?

Or honestly Larnach is a pretty good 5-7 batter.

I wouldn't hate having Correa in the lineup, other than I think there might be a more impactful way to allocate $35M a year--this of course assumes that Lewis is able to play a competent SS at the MLB level.  Your future infield could very well be Arraez at 1B, Steer at 2B, Lewis at SS, and Miranda at 3B; that future could be next year.  You could pay that group $15M for the next 3 years combined, or you could get Polanco/Kepler style deals done with all of them, and pay that group $20M a year for the next 5 years.  Add Kiriloff, Buxton, and Wallner, and all of the sudden you have a pretty potent lineup, and lots of salary space for pitching.

[Scott51104]

Top 3 WPA: Jorge Polanco .159, Jose Miranda .133, Josh Winder .108

 

Too bad Kirilloff hit that single or he might have made the list.

[mikelink45]

Great to see Winder, Miranda, Kiriloff doing so well.  The youth of the Twins is pushing forward.  We need a new SP and a couple RP to emerge, then we have to find a way to bring in Steer.  I like the way the future is unfolding.  Just keep Winder in the rotation!