The Minnesota Twins' offense disappeared once again on Monday afternoon in the first game of a doubleheader against the Chicago White Sox. Former Twins' minor leaguer Philip Humber threw seven shutout innings for the Pale Hose, and Chicago took the opener of this four-game series by a score of 2-1.
Chicago did all of their damage in the second and third innings of this one. Alejandro de Aza had an RBI groundout to score A.J. Pierzynski in the top of the second to make the score 1-0, and Alexei Ramirez had an RBI double in the top of the third that scored Juan Pierre to stretch the White Sox lead to 2-0.
Minnesota's lone run came in the bottom of the ninth, courtesy of a sacrifice fly off of the bat of Luke Hughes to score Danny Valencia and cut the deficit to 2-1. The White Sox went through three pitchers in the ninth inning, but eventually got out of trouble, as Chris Sale struck out Jason Repko with a runner on first to finish the game.
Both starting pitchers performed fairly well, with Humber throwing seven scoreless innings and allowing six hits for Chicago. Anthony Swarzak went eight innings, allowing two runs on seven hits in a losing effort. The loss for the Twins was their 82nd of the year, meaning that the 2011 Twins will be a losing team.
The nightcap is scheduled to get underway at 7:10 PM Central time from Target Field. The pitching matchup will feature Zach Stewart (1-3, 5.48 ERA) for the White Sox and Scott Diamond (1-2, 4.82 ERA) for the Twins.