CHICAGO _ This tour of the bottom of the American League standings isn't going exactly as the Twins envisioned.
Embarking on a road trip to last-place Chicago and last-place Toronto on the momentum of a four-game winning streak, the Twins hoped to take advantage of their downtrodden brethren to solidify their postseason chances. Instead, after a sloppy and frustrating 5-1 loss the White Sox on Thursday, the Twins head to Canada having lost the five-game series in Guaranteed Rate Park despite outscoring Chicago, 24-19.
Jose Berrios struck out nine White Sox hitters, the second-highest total of his career, and allowed only four hits. But combined with a couple of critical errors, one of them Berrios', and three walks, the White Sox turned that meager output into five runs and their third win in the five-game set.
Twins hitters, meanwhile, were shut down by Chicago left-hander Derek Holland, whom they had pummeled for 20 runs in 14 innings in their three previous meetings with him this season, all Minnesota victories. One night after being limited to just three hits by another veteran, James Shields, Minnesota eked out four hits over the first eight innings, never more than one in an inning. And they went 0-for-6 when managing to put a runner in scoring position.
The lone breakthrough came courtesy of Byron Buxton, who led off the sixth inning, which Holland hadn't seen in five of his previous seven starts, with a 408-foot blast over the Chicago bullpen, his 10th home run of the season. But no other Twins hitter reached third base in the game's first eight innings, a surprising turnaround for an offense that hit eight home runs in the series' first three games.
Berrios surrendered a home run, too, to Yolmer Sanchez in the second inning. Sanchez fell behind 0-and-2 by swinging at Berrios fastballs, then waited until the Twins right-hander left a fastball in the middle of the plate on a 2-2 count.
The fourth inning is where Berrios got in real trouble, though it wasn't entirely of his own doing. A leadoff walk to rookie Yoan Moncada and a stolen base got him in trouble right away, and when Mitch Garver, playing first base in Joe Mauer's place, couldn't cleanly field Nicky Delmonico's ground ball, it rolled far enough away to allow Moncada to score. Singles by Kevan Smith and Sanchez loaded the bases, and Tim Anderson, who delivered a perfectly placed ground ball to win Wednesday's game, did it again: He smashed a grounder that third baseman Ehire Adrianza had to dive for, preventing him from starting a double play. Delmonico scored on the force play.
And Berrios made matters worse when he saw Smith straying off third base. The 23-year-old pitcher tried to pick him off, but his throw sailed into foul territory up the left-field line, allowing Smith to score.
Smith did more damage two innings later, knocking Berrios out of the game with an RBI double that scored Delmonico with Chicago's fifth run.
The Twins were in danger of falling out of the second wild card following Wednesday night's loss, but they held on to the spot when the Angels lost to Texas in 10 innings later that night. With this loss, the Angels again were in position to jump over the Twins in the American League standings if they could beat the Rangers.
