After a tough road trip out west, the White Sox returned home to familiar surroundings, and a familiar formula.
The White Sox scored all their runs via homers, and they hit two of them to Minnesota's one. Munetaka Murakami tied it up in the bottom of the first with a solo shot to regain sole possession of the AL home run lead, Drew Romo hit a two-run dinger in the second, and Anthony Kay and the White Sox's three best relievers carried it the rest of the way to propel the record back over .500.
Kay fell behind after two batters when Brooks Lee did what he should on a 2-0 middle-middle sinker, detonating it to left for a 1-0 Minnesota lead. Fortunately for the White Sox, the same fate befell Zebby Matthews in the bottom of the first. Two batters in, Matthews tried starting Murakami with an inside fastball at 98 mph, but Murakami got the bat head around and launched a 41-degree satellite that cleared the right field wall with a little room to spare.
Romo's two-run shot in the second was a lesser version of Murakami's in every way but one. Matthews tried a nearly identical fastball, but two ticks slower. Romo couldn't say he got all of it, as it left that bat at 93.4 mph. It barely cleared the right field wall, and the glove of a leaping Austin Martin. Yet because Tristan Peters started the inning with walk, it counted twice as much. Romo's fifth homer of the season gave the Sox a 3-1 lead.
That's where the score stayed, and Rikuu Nishida's arm is the main reason why. The Twins threatened to retake the lead in the top of the second when Alex Jackson followed Ryan Kreidler's two-out single with one of his own. Orlando Arcia got the green light to test the arm of the undersized guy making his major league debut, and the Twins learned what so many Southern League baserunners grew to understand: Nishida can throw. He made an accurate one-hop throw home, Romo snared it cleanly, and he successfully pursued Arcia around the plate before a hand could touch home.
From there, Kay settled in. Unlike his previous start, Kay had command of sweeper, locating it well for both strike-grabbing and chasing. It was an important development, because his harder pitches tended to yield harder contact. That said, the Twins couldn't quite get the launch angle right, settling for singles and hustle doubles versus anything that looked particularly threatening. Kay pumped strikes -- 62 of 94 pitches -- and Lee's homer aside, never paid a price for being in the zone.
By pitching six, it allowed Will Venable to use his preferred route to the finish line. Grant Taylor pitched a scoreless seventh, with his velocity improving over the course of his inning after a flat, unsuccessful afternoon in San Francisco the day before. Bryan Hudson had to pitch around a couple of mistakes during his scoreless eighth, as Peters dropped a Martin fly ball on the warning track due to uncertainty with Sam Antonacci, and then Martin took third on a popout to the catcher because Colson Montgomery didn't cover.
That left the ninth for Seranthony Domínguez, who nearly walked his first batter until a Romo full-count challenge flipped the outcome. He gave up a solid single to Luke Keaschall, but struck out Trevor Larnach on a nice splitter and got Victor Caratini to pop out, which left Byron Buston on deck as the Sox celebrated.
Bullet points:
*Kay improved to 4-1, and the White Sox are 7-4 on the days he pitches. He lowered his ERA for the fourth consecutive start, and now it's down to 3.96.
*Nishida ended up with seven putouts, and nearly had a seventh had the ball not rattled in and out of his glove on a diving attempt. He went 1-for-3 at the plate, with a seeing-eye single through the infield just right of second. It was clocked at 102 mph, it bounded at a much slower pace since he hit it straight into the ground.
*A crowd of 30,114 was rewarded for showing up and showing out.
