Twins flex power muscles early, edge White Sox

CHICAGO – The power show the Twins put on early Thursday should've kept them out of a battle of the bullpens, but that's where they were as soon as Matt Davidson's home run in the sixth landed in the left field seats.

The Twins' six-run lead was down to one, and they had to outbully the talented White Sox bullpen.

"This would have been a pretty bad loss if things had continued the way they were going," said righthander Phil Hughes, the starter whose exit in the fifth inning was part of the problem.

Beat up and beleaguered, the relief corps became impenetrable, shutting down the Chicago offense over the last three innings of the Twins' 7-6 victory over the White Sox.

An out-of-form Ryan Pressly took the mound in the seventh and struck out the side. He ended a nine-pitch battle with Jose Abreu by blowing a 97-miles-per-hour fastball by the slugger. Pressly then struck out Avisail Garcia to end the inning.

"Probably his best outing," Twins manager Paul Molitor said. "He's mixed in a couple along the way. But to come in a one-run game after we had lost momentum and shut it down, three good hitters. Aggressive with his fastball, command of his off-speed pitches. To get through that inning and give us a chance to set up the eighth and ninth."

Matt Belisle got the first out of the eighth but walked Davidson and Tim Anderson. Molitor then turned to closer Brandon Kintzler. Kintzler had one four-out save this season and three last season, but never a five-out save.

"That's a big-league save right there," Molitor said.

Chicago's talented bullpen shut down the Twins offense late. White Sox relievers entered the game second in the major leagues in ERA, at 2.39. The Twins were 26th, at 5.05. But the Twins were equal to the Sox on Thursday.

Some big swings early helped the Twins race to a 6-0 lead. A four-run first inning was fueled by Eduardo Escobar's three-run homer halfway up the stands in left. Brian Dozier followed with a home run to left in the second, and Miguel Sano added an opposite-field shot off Chicago starter Derek Holland to make it 6-0. The three home runs off Holland tied a career high.

But the Twins have been hitting home runs off everybody these days. Thursday marked their 12th game in a row with a home run, their longest such streak since 2002. And they have hit 17 homers in eight games this month. Sano leads the team with nine, and Dozier is next with five.

Chicago scored twice in the fourth to get within 6-2, one run scoring when Byron Buxton dropped a routine fly ball. Escobar's RBI double made it 7-2 in the fifth.

"You can't let the wheels come off like that," Hughes said. "Thankfully we had a big enough cushion that it didn't cost us. In a tight game it would be a real difference-maker."