Costly baserunning miscue leads to triple play in defeat

CHICAGO -- A stretch of 19 straight games against the American League Central for the White Sox began with a 6-3 loss in 10 innings to the Twins Monday night at Guaranteed Rate Field.

The setback played out a number of common trends, in that the White Sox fell to 16-22 at home, 10-13 against the division and 0-4 against the Twins (46-37), who now hold a 5 1/2 game advantage over the White Sox. But first baseman José Abreu, who became the first White Sox player to reach 10 home runs this season with an opposite field drive in the second, looks at this 19-game sequence from more of a daily view.

“We have to go game by game, try to win every game,” said Abreu through interpreter Billy Russo. “Except today, it was a good battle. We did our best, didn’t get the results we wanted to, but it was a battle. I was excited about the effort we put on the field. Our goal is to win. If we win, we’re going to be in a good spot. That’s our purpose. That’s what we try to accomplish every day. If we do that at the end of this stretch we’ll be in a good position. If not, we'll assess and see where we are after that.”

In Abreu’s game-by-game approach, Monday’s contest was directly influenced by a bizarre triple play pulled off by the Twins in the seventh. The White Sox had tied the game on Yoán Moncada’s single to left and had pinch-runner Adam Engel on second and Moncada on first. That's when AJ Pollock launched a fly ball with a 101.9 exit velocity and an .820 expected batting average, per Statcast, toward right-center.

Pollock’s long drive looked as if it had a chance to go out or at least go for extra bases and score a run or two. But Byron Buxton made a great running catch, and, with Engel and Moncada both running without tagging up, the Twins finished off the inning with Gio Urshela doing the honors.

“Never seen one like it. Potential difference-maker at that point,” said White Sox manager Tony La Russa of his team hitting into its first triple play since May 21, 2021 at Yankee Stadium. “Yoan was really aggressive, which is not the worst thing you can do when you play this game. Judgement was wrong and costly.”

“I just saw the runner running to home plate and I saw Buxsie got the ball there, so just trying to tag the runner,” Urshela said. “When I threw to first, I thought, ‘We got a triple play.’”

Engel took responsibility for the baserunning mishap.

“I'm sure Yoán saw me take off and not tag, and I led him into making an out there,” Engel said. “Everybody did the right thing. Yo was right where he needed to be to hopefully score on that play if the ball gets down. That was my mistake. AJ did his job, Yo was doing the right thing, and I left early and didn't see the ball get down, which is something that I gotta do there, and it was a big momentum shift in the game.”

Joe Kelly allowed four runs (three earned) in the 10th, dropping the White Sox to 4-6 in extra innings this season. Kelly walked two in the 10th, with Alex Kirilloff coming through with a two-run single.

“Didn't locate and obviously when you don't locate, you're going to get beat,” Kelly said. “Fell behind from pitch one pretty much. Single, you can live with that. Obviously you don't want a go-ahead run to score, but the next couple of guys, just missing. Off mechanically a little bit."

La Russa was not around to see the end of the loss, as home plate umpire David Rackley ejected him in the 10th. He missed a three-game winning streak coming to an end for the White Sox, and his team failing to get to .500 by slipping back to 38-40.

Even with the continued inconsistencies, hope remains high in the clubhouse fortunes soon can change.

“At any moment the coin can flip to our favor and we can start winning games against them,” Abreu said. “That’s going to be our purpose tomorrow, try to do our best and win our best and who knows, maybe that will start a stretch of winning games against them.”

“We have 80-plus games left, and we have to keep playing hard every single game,” said White Sox starting pitcher Johnny Cueto, who allowed two runs in six innings. “They are leading the division, and it's going to be what we do against our division rivals.”