Young fans watch during the fifth inning of the White Sox’ latest loss to the Minnesota Twins on Wednesday.
Nam Y. Huh/AP
A weekday afternoon game.
Sunny skies, 74 degrees with a nice breeze.
Busloads of school children in the outfield stands on Weather Day chanting, “Let’s Go. White Sox.”
On a delightful day for baseball, the White Sox hit a couple of homers and built a lead, all systems go for a rare victory, and potentially a warm welcome to a merry, merry month of May after a horrendous 4½ weeks of .200 baseball.
For the 6-25 Sox, though, it was more of the same April tomfoolery: A blown lead, walks that killed them and a costly two-run error by shortstop Paul DeJong on a routine ground ball spelling doom in a 10-5 loss to the streaking Twins, who completed their second series sweep of the Sox in 10 days and won their 10th game in a row.
Chris Flexen allowed two runs over five innings, a “we’ll take that every time” kind of start.
What was impossible to take was right-hander Steven Wilson walking the bases full in the sixth with a two-run lead.
“I mean, three walks,” Wilson said in a quiet Sox clubhouse. “That’s what went wrong.
“I was missing arm side.”
Dominic Leone replaced Wilson, ran the count to 3-0 on Willi Castro but came back to get a routine ground ball to DeJong, who let it roll under his glove and between his legs for a tying two-run error.
Ope! Just gonna sneak right past ya! pic.twitter.com/rgLbC8wlIO
— Minnesota Twins (@Twins) May 1, 2024
DeJong said he was partially screened by Trevor Larnach moving from second to third.
“[Castro] capped it, ball’s spinning like crazy and Larnach did a good job at second base blocking my view,” DeJong said. “Ball just kind of took off sideways on me and I whiffed and unfortunately it costs us two runs.”
Deeper, angrier, throaty voices from the paid crowd of 12,216 drowned out the kids as the walks mounted. The Twins converted four of the seven free passes issued by the Sox into runs.
A pop fly that fell between second baseman Braden Shewmake and right fielder Gavin Sheets didn’t figure in the scoring but put another smudge on these Sox’ bad optics, a bad look for players and staff alike.
“What’s frustrating is we’re [3-8] in one-run games,” Grifol said. “And these are games we’ve got to find a way to win. . . . It’s the little things, the little details that just add up during the course of a game.
“It’s an 0-2 pitch, it’s moving a runner over. Whatever the case may be. . . . We’ve got to clean it up, if not, we’re going to get our ass kicked every night.”
The Sox might not even be underachieving. But their margin for error is “zero,” Grifol said.
“Not in a one-run game,” he said. “Championship teams don’t care about those margins, they just find a way to get it done. Look at [the Twins] over there. They’re playing good baseball right now. But they’re also playing good fundamental baseball.”
The Sox?
Not so much.
Although Tommy Pham, the welcome addition to a previously scuffling lineup that has produced 33 runs in six games since his arrival, doubled home Robbie Grossman (leadoff double) and scored on Andrew Vaughn’s RBI single against Twins starter Bailey Ober in the first and homered in the third for a 3-1 lead.
Catcher Korey Lee homered against Brock Stewart in the seventh to make it 6-5, but the Twins (17-13) tacked on four runs in the ninth against Tanner Banks and John Brebbia.
“We’ve just got to be ready and fighting and willing to win a close game,” DeJong said. “We’ve been losing a lot of close games. This one got out of hand for us at the end there. But for a while we were in control. Just got to be able to put teams away. We’ve been scoring early lately and that’s been good. Our offense is looking a lot better. It’s just a matter of lining up offense, pitching, defense, all together and playing a good team game.
“We couldn’t quite do that all today.”
All season, truth be told.