CHICAGO — Gilberto Celestino made a rookie mistake on the bases Monday at the worst possible time: During a tie game in extra innings.
Good thing, too.
The 22-year-old outfielder, pinch-running for Ryan Jeffers and serving as the unearned baserunner to start the extra inning, extricated himself from a rundown and extended the inning, which paid off when the Twins scored twice to end their three-game losing streak with a 3-2 victory in Game 1 of a doubleheader at Guaranteed Rate Field.
With nobody out in the eighth inning of a scheduled seven-inning makeup game, Celestino was standing on third base when Josh Donaldson hit a chopper to another rookie, White Sox third baseman Jake Burger. Celestino broke for the plate, then realized his mistake and stopped about a 25 feet down the line. Burger ran towards him, then made a mistake of his own: He suddenly flipped the ball to shortstop Tim Anderson, who arrived too late and collided with umpire Chris Guccione besides.
Trevor Larnach struck out and Nelson Cruz flew out to center field, and had Celestino been tagged out, the inning would have ended without a run. Instead, Cruz's fly ball allowed the rookie to tag up and score. And when Jorge Polanco followed with a single, Luis Arraez was able to slide across the plate a split-second ahead of catcher Zack Collins' tag to deliver an insurance run — that turned out to be critical.
That's because Jose Abreu crushed a Hansel Robles fastball to the warning track in center in the bottom of the inning, a double that scored Tim Anderson with Chicago's second run. But Robles struck out Gavin Sheets and Adam Engel to finish off the victory, only the Twins' third in 13 meetings with the White Sox this season.
It also improved the Twins' record to 2-7 in scheduled seven-inning games this season. Minnesota, averaging just 1.89 runs in the shortened games, has been outscored 36-17 in them.
Griffin Jax lasted only four innings after alerting the training staff that he was bothered by a blister on his throwing hand, but he still turned in the best performance of his young major-league career. The righthander struck out six in his four innings, including three White Sox in the first inning, and induced 16 swing-and-misses among his 68 pitches.
His lone mistake was barely that: After missing with his first two pitches to Tim Anderson in the third inning, Jax placed a fastball down and away, just hitting the corner of the strike zone. But Anderson leaned over and golfed the ball 417 feet into the right-field seats. Anderson's ninth home run of the season was the only hit Jax allowed.
That gave Chicago a seemingly insurmountable lead, given that the Twins lost a 1-0 game on a solo home run just two days earlier in Detroit. Former Twin Lance Lynn gave up three singles in his first five innings, but only once, when he added his lone walk in the third inning, did a Twin reach second base.
That changed in the sixth, when Lynn made his lone mistake: An inside fastball that Cruz was waiting to ambush. He deposited into the White Sox bullpen, tying the game with his team-high 19th homer of the season.
Jorge Alcala and Taylor Rogers took over when Jax's blister forced him out of the game, each contributing a scoreless inning without a baserunner reaching scoring position.
