Minneapolis – It was a whirlwind of a night for Minnesota Twins shortstop Tristan Gray. Four pitches into the game, he committed a fielding error on a ball that bounced off starter Joe Ryan’s glove and allowed Chicago White Sox leadoff man Sam Antonacci to reach.
Fortunately for Gray and the Twins, it was only positive from there. He would hit a fourth-inning grand slam that boosted Minnesota to a 9-6 victory, ending a five-game losing skid.
“I think it’s a tough error; any time you have it deflect off the pitcher, it’s spinning a little different,” said Gray. “Joe was adamant about letting me know, ‘Hey, it’s fine. Don’t worry about it.’ I think that’s just what we do really well. When something doesn’t go our way, no one bats an eye, and we just continue to try to win.”
Gray may have been the star at the plate, but the Twins had a complete team win over the Chicago White Sox on Monday night. Joe Ryan pitched six full innings and struck out nine batters in a game for the third consecutive start. Each Twins batter reached base at least once, and Byron Buxton was the only hitter in the starting lineup who didn’t score a run.
The Twins faced off against David Sandlin for the second time in a week. Sandlin had made his MLB debut last Tuesday in Chicago, allowing a leadoff home run to Buxton to start his career, then proceeded not to allow a hit for the rest of the six innings he pitched.
However, Monday night was another story. The Twins were more patient with their at-bats, drew walks, and strung together hits throughout Sandlin’s four-plus innings on the mound, all for Gray to get the big hit when they needed it.
“I think the one thing we’ve talked about is, and you can talk about all kinds of numbers and analytics or whatever, there’s nothing that’s a greater indicator than standing in the box and facing a guy,” said Twins manager Derek Shelton. “And we were able to do that five days ago, or six days ago, or whatever it was. I thought our hitting and our hitters did a really nice job adjusting to what we saw the last time.”
Ryan had a couple of mistakes in the fifth, allowing back-to-back home runs to White Sox third baseman Miguel Vargas and DH Andrew Benintendi. The home runs came off a sweeper (Vargas) and a fastball (Benintendi) that were both located right down the heart of the plate.
With his pitch count at 98 (70 of which were strikes) through six full innings, Ryan’s night was done. Ryan would have liked to have gone longer after the starting rotation lost another arm to injury in Bailey Ober. With an already depleted pitching staff, Ryan wanted to get as deep into the game as he could to alleviate the bullpen some more.
“I don’t feel like I gave enough length,” Ryan said. “There’s some things that could have gone differently, and trying to mix things up when we didn’t need to be doing that, and adding things in that we haven’t done all year. Just kind of changing the plan at times, and it limits the innings there. I was probably in a spot to go a couple more innings.”
Ryan didn’t pitch as deep into the game as he wanted. Still, he was impressed with the onslaught the offense put up after losing five straight on the road.
“It was good to get a good win there against these guys,” he said. “They’re playing really good baseball and are probably our biggest competition in the division right now. Good to get a win and put up a bunch of runs. This was really fun for the offense and good to watch that.”
The Twins have been either hot or cold in games with runners in scoring position. Still, when they’ve had the bases loaded, they’ve been fairly consistent with a .305 batting average (sixth-best in the majors) and .340 on-base percentage in 100 plate appearances entering Monday night’s game.
Gray’s grand slam wasn’t the only time they capitalized with the bases loaded. Austin Martin and Victor Caratini had RBI singles in the fifth, followed by a Luke Keaschall sac fly to make it a 3-for-3 night with the bases loaded. The Twins are only one of eight teams hitting over .300 with the bases loaded, a key to their success at the plate.
“I think that’s our team identity,” said Gray. “You obviously want to be the guy to make it happen. However, we know if they don’t give us the right pitch, then there’s nothing we can do about it, and we trust the guy to pick us up if we don’t come through and/or if we come up walking.”
Twins acquire Justin Lawerance from the Pirates
After the game, the Twins announced they made a trade with the Pittsburgh Pirates for RHP Justin Lawrence for cash. Lawrence, 31, is from Panama and has pitched in the majors since 2021. He owns a career 5.05 ERA and 1.55 WHIP in 222 career appearances. The Twins will make a corresponding move before Tuesday night’s game.
