MINNEAPOLIS — No more Lucas Giolito in 2019.
In a surprise announcement after the White Sox’ 5-3 loss Monday to the American League-Central-leading Twins, general manager Rick Hahn said the right-hander would be shut down for the rest of the season because of an injury.
Diagnosis: a mild lat strain.
Prognosis: ‘‘No long-term concerns whatsoever,’’ according to Hahn.
Giolito felt discomfort in the area around his right triceps while throwing a side session Sunday in Seattle, in advance of his scheduled start Tuesday against the Twins. If the Sox had been in a playoff push, Giolito said he would have kept throwing and gritted it out. This is the type of injury that, with rest and rehab, might cost a pitcher three weeks during the regular season.
There just isn’t that much time left, so Giolito — 14-9 with a 3.41 ERA in a breakout All-Star season — will miss what would have been his final three starts.
‘‘For me, it just sucks because I wanted to finish what I started,’’ he said.
He called his season ‘‘a step in the right direction.’’
‘‘We’re disappointed that his season is ending this way,’’ Hahn said. ‘‘But, given that it’s a temporary thing, we’re certainly excited about the big picture and the totality of his work in 2019.’’
Another tough start for Lopez
For a while there, there was a nice narrative developing about the second half of Sox right-hander Reynaldo Lopez’s season.
Hark back to July. In his last four starts of that month — all after the All-Star break — Lopez was rock-solid, flashing all the ability that has established him as a key piece of the Sox rebuilding plan.
But with the glaring exception of his complete-game one-hitter Sept. 5 in Cleveland, Lopez has thrown enough duds since then to call his progress into question.
He left the Sox’ loss to the Twins after 5„ innings, with the Twins in mid-rally. The book closed on Lopez’s outing after reliever Jace Fry allowed a pair of runners to score — the fourth and fifth charged to Lopez, whose record fell to 9-14.
It wasn’t the lift the Sox were looking for after losing their previous two games against the Mariners in walk-off fashion. The Sox have lost five of their last six and 14 of their last 19.
Lopez had some bad luck, too. Left fielder Eloy Jimenez committed a throwing error, and right fielder Ryan Goins took a poor route to a fly ball in a fifth inning that could have turned out more favorably for the Sox.
Third baseman Yoan Moncada nipped a Sox rally in the bud by getting himself picked off by Twins right-hander Jose Berrios (13-8) in the sixth. And Luis Arraez’s two-run single against Fry in the sixth was a seemingly harmless squibber that fooled Moncada at third.
‘‘That’s one of the things that just happens to me,’’ Lopez said through a translator. ‘‘If somebody else was there, it would have been fine. But [that’s] the kind of stuff that happens to me. Bad luck.’’
Where’s Timmy?
Shortstop Tim Anderson, who entered play Monday in a tie for the major-league lead with a .332 batting average, got the night off, with Danny Mendick starting in his place. Mendick went 0-for-4 with two strikeouts, including one to end the game.
Renteria didn’t have Anderson grab a bat as a pinch hitter in the ninth. Instead, he gave Welington Castillo a go before letting Mendick hit for himself.
