April 15--Mat Latos said he likes to the think of the White Sox pitching staff as a "friendly competition." When one pitcher has a good night, the next one up tries to top him.
So far, Latos has kept himself in that game.
The right-hander gave up one earned run over six innings Thursday to help the Sox to a 3-1 victory over the Twins. The Sox left Target Field for a three-game visit with the Rays at 7-2, their best nine-game start since 1982.
A lot of the credit goes to the Sox pitching staff, which allowed two runs over the three-game sweep of the 0-9 Twins. Sox starting pitchers have made seven quality starts and the pitching staff as a whole has a 2.25 ERA.
"We want to compete with one another and try to outdo each other's starts," Latos said. "Carlos (Rodon) threw the ball really well (Wednesday), and I just tried to basically do the same thing. I put that in the back of my mind that he threw a real good game, and I want to outdo him."
Latos had as much to prove as anyone on the Sox coming into this season. On Thursday, it was proving that his solid first start -- six scoreless innings against the A's last week -- wasn't a fluke for a pitcher who battled a knee injury and recovery from it the last two seasons.
"You can question one (good outing), but when (he does) it again, you like where he's at," Sox manager Robin Ventura said. "He's in a little bit of a groove, and velocity seems to be there enough to make that curveball very effective."
Latos gave up three hits with a walk, a hit batter and four strikeouts. The only Twins run scored after Joe Mauer's leadoff triple to left field escaped Melky Cabrera's diving reach in the fourth inning. Mauer scored on Trevor Plouffe's groundout to cut the Sox lead to 2-1.
"Real good sliders," Latos said. "It kept them off balance off the fastball, and then I would locate the fastball when I needed to. ... Actually had a good curveball today, too, which was surprising.
"When I'm healthy and have a good slider, things tend to go really good."
The Sox provided just enough hitting and the bullpen combination of Matt Albers, Zach Duke, Nate Jones and David Robertson locked down the victory.
After sitting out Wednesday night, Avisail Garcia hit his second homer of the season an estimated 424 feet to center field off Twins right-hander Ervin Santana. He added a leadoff double in the seventh inning, advanced on J.B. Shuck's sacrifice bunt and scored on Tyler Saladino's sacrifice fly to right field, just beating Miguel Sano's spot-on throw to the plate.
"Do we want more runs? Of course," Sox third baseman Todd Frazier said. "But if we have to make some plays out there, some fundamental things, bunt and get the guy over and we hit a sac fly, those are huge runs in the game. When the pitchers are doing the job they are doing, it makes it a lot easier for us hitters."
ckane@tribpub.com
