May strikes out 10 in Twins' victory over White Sox

CHICAGO – The White Sox opened the fourth inning with four consecutive hits and two runs. The implosion seemed to be just a couple of pitches away.

But Trevor May didn't have that look on Sunday. He marched off the mound to take the ball, talked with catcher Kurt Suzuki and then was visited by pitching coach Rick Anderson, who told him to get back to pounding his fastball and then using his other pitches.

"I wanted to stay on it the whole time until they took the ball from me,'' May said. "I told myself that's what I was going to do and no matter what happens I was going to do that.''

May went back to what made the first three innings so entertaining. He struck out Avisail Garcia looking. Andy Wilkins and Dayan Viciedo went down swinging. The blowup inning never came. May lasted six innings, his longest outing in seven starts. and the Twins went on to beat Chicago 6-4 and avoid a sweep of the three-game series.

The Twins went 2-4 on the road trip, but what they look for at this time of year are signs that players like May are progressing. He won his third consecutive start by holding the White Sox to three runs over six innings, striking out 10 and walking none. The Twins, after not having a starter hit double-digit strikeouts in 379 games, have now done it in two of their past three.

May has shaken off early nervousness to show that he could be a factor in the 2015 rotation. He threw first-pitch strikes to 19 of the 23 batters he faced and worked them over with a curveball that dropped out of the strike zone. He retired the first nine batters he faced, striking out five of them. He twice struck out four consecutive batters and was constantly rewarded for keeping the ball down.

He was on the attack, and White Sox hitters were on their heels.

"The mind starts floating around a little bit,'' Twins manager Ron Gardenhire said. "You mind goes crazy up here. You feel like you need to change things when you really need to use what got you here and just trust your stuff.''

May agreed. He hasn't been the pitcher he was in the minors before being called up in August and wanted to get back to that. So he reached out to righthander Phil Hughes, whose approach is what May strives to have. The two sat down before his start on Tuesday at Cleveland.

"He came to me and asked how I attacked that lineup and what I see from him,'' Hughes said. "And we just sort of talked. I'd like to see him use his fastball more, pitch off his fastball, be aggressive more. You saw today once he got comfortable throwing his fastball, then he could do whatever he wanted to. Instead of using his curveball as a complementary pitch he could use it as his put-away pitch. Once he had guys on their heels, that's the type of pitcher he can be. He's got really good stuff. You just have to gain that confidence.''

Trying on Hughes' strike-throwing life to see how it fits is not a bad thing when Hughes has emerged as one of the best free-agent signings of the season.

The Twins got a bases-empty home run from Trevor Plouffe and a two-run shot from Jordan Schafer as they won the season series against the White Sox 10-9. Schafer singled in the ninth, stole second and third and then scored on a sacrifice fly for the Twins' final run. Glen Perkins secured his 34th save despite a golf-shot home run by Jose Abreu in the ninth.

May's outing, however, had the Twins rather chipper as they headed for the airport. For one day the future looked promising. May wants to keep it that way.

"The biggest thing for me is, for the rest of the season, is to have as good of poise as I can have regardless of what is happening,'' he said. "Because that is going to carry on to success in the future and going into next year, and that is what we're trying to do here. Get the wheels turning."