As hard as they tried to require more offense, the Chicago White Sox achieved all they needed against the Twins on Monday with a four-run fourth inning.
Hanser Alberto's one-out, three-run homer highlighted the inning that powered Chicago to a 4-3 victory over the Twins at Target Field.
Thanks largely to three Chicago errors, the Twins scored single runs in the third, fourth and fifth innings. But they couldn't manage another, not after leaving nine runners on base for the day. They managed only four hits, double the two they had in Sunday's 5-1 loss to Houston.
With the White Sox starting 2022 AL Cy Young Award runner-up Dylan Cease, the Twins had stars Byron Buxton (day off), Carlos Correa (back spasms) and Joey Gallo (right-side soreness) out of the lineup on a sun-splashed spring day, along with Max Kepler, Jorge Polanco and Alex Kirilloff still on the injured list.
They scored the game's first run unearned in the third inning, but Chicago answered with a four-run fourth, the final three runs coming when Alberto drove Kenta Maeda's 80-mile-per-hour slider 390 feet into the left-center field bleachers.
"Big hits like that change the dynamic of any close game," Twins manager Rocco Baldelli said. "We were able to stay in the game. We had some guys on base. We had some opportunities. We needed a big hit. We didn't get our big hit today to really get things going."
Baldelli stitched together a lineup that had Trevor Larnach leading off, Jose Miranda as designated hitter, Donovan Solano at first, Kyle Farmer at shortstop, Willi Castro at third and 6-foot-5 Forest Lake native Matt Wallner in right field.
"Definitely a different kind of lineup we put out there so far this year," Baldelli said. "We believe our guys are going to go out there and get the job done no matter who we put out there."
Wallner, recalled from Class AAA St. Paul on Saturday after Kepler went on the IL, had an adventurous, physical afternoon. He helped cut into the deficit in the fourth and fifth innings, colliding with two White Sox players along the way.
One of them was shortstop Tim Anderson in a fourth-inning rundown. Wallner, hit by a pitch to open the inning, successfully avoided getting tagged out, but Anderson didn't avoid getting knocked over. He left the game because of knee soreness not long after that.
The other was first baseman Gavin Sheets. He went sprawling in a harsh collision with Wallner, whose blast down the first-base line went right through Sheets' glove for Chicago's third error of the day. That enabled Nick Gordon, who had also reached on an error, to score what the Twins' third and final run.
Baldelli recalls another encounter in spring training where Wallner "dented a wall."
"He's a big man," Baldelli said. "I don't know if he feels pain in a normal way."
When asked if he's training to make baseball a contact sport, Wallner said: "I'm not trying to. I'm trying to get to the base, whatever it takes. … I feel great. I love it."
That wasn't enough for the Twins to overcome Alberto's first homer of the season. In his second start back from Tommy John elbow ligament replacement surgery, Maeda gave up four runs on eight hits in six innings, with four of the hits coming in the decisive fourth.
"It obviously wasn't the best outing today," Maeda said in Japanese through his interpreter.
"... It's nice to come back from injury and be on a big-league mound. However, I can say I'm not 100 percent there yet. There's still some work that needs to be done."
Cease departed after throwing 98 pitches over five innings, but the Twins only put two runners on against four relievers. Their best chance to tie it up came in the eighth when Castro advanced as far as third, but Reynaldo López came in and struck out Michael A. Taylor. López remained to pitch a perfect ninth inning for his second save.
"Sometimes you come to the park and have to find other ways to win," Baldelli said. "That's what we're going to do right now."
