For three innings, the White Sox had the game exactly where they wanted it. Then the middle innings showed up and changed everything.
Chicago grabbed a 3-0 lead right away on Friday, but that cushion vanished as Anthony Kay ran into trouble for the third straight start before the fifth inning, and the Twins rode the big innings to a 6-4 win that sends the series to a rubber match on Sunday.
The Sox opened fast. After Sam Antonacci drew a walk to start Taj Bradley’s night, Munetaka Murakami launched an opposite-field two-run homer that kept carrying toward the back of the White Sox bullpen. Before Bradley could finish the inning, Colson Montgomery added another blast, a 112.3-mph shot that a fan somehow caught one-handed in the front row behind right field.
But the early burst didn’t hold up once Kay went through the order again. He needed only 37 pitches to get through three innings, and a Miguel Vargas error was the only reason he was one batter over the minimum at that point.
The Twins, though, began extending at-bats the second time through. Kaelen Culpepper poked a cutter into left for a single, Josh Bell split the left-center gap on another cutter to put runners on second and third, and Brooks Lee followed with a line drive to the left-field corner that cut the lead to 3-2.
The inning that really flipped things came after Kay opened the fifth by grazing Ryan Kreidler’s elbow with a 2-2 fastball, turning the lineup back over. Luke Keaschall pushed an outside pitch to right, Culpepper grounded out, and then Kay left a cutter up to Ryan Jeffers. Jeffers crushed it for a three-run homer and suddenly the Twins were in front 5-3.
Chicago did make a push, but not nearly enough of one. Michael Meidroth led off an inning with a single and only reached second on a two-out steal.
Antonacci drew his second walk, and Vargas singled through the right side to trim the deficit to 5-4. That was the Sox’s lone hit with runners in scoring position.
The rest of the chances came and went. Tristan Peters doubled with one out in the seventh and was stranded. Randal Grichuk doubled with two outs in the eighth and also got left there.
Minnesota added one more run in the seventh when Keaschall singled and Culpepper doubled into the right-field corner, finishing off the scoring at 6-4.
Chicago’s bullpen mostly held after Kay exited. Trevor Richards retired all three batters he faced.
Tyler Schweitzer worked around a Kody Clemens TOOTBLAN that erased a leadoff walk with an 8-3 double play. Tyler Davis handled the ninth and faced the minimum.
Sean Newcomb, though, gave back the run in the seventh, and he ended up being the only high-leverage reliever the Sox used who was scored upon.
A few notes from the night: Kay has now failed to get through the fifth inning in his last three outings, and the split between his first three innings and everything after is getting harder to ignore. Murakami set a White Sox record with the highest launch angle of a homer in the Statcast era, with the 49-degree shot beating his own 48-degree homer off Drew Pomerantz back in April.
Montgomery now owns the White Sox shortstop home run record after tying Jose Valentin at 30. And with the Tigers finally holding a lead, the White Sox still sit 2 1/2 games up in the AL Central.
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