Twins manage one hit in 11-0 blowout loss to White Sox heading into All-Star break

Pretty much the only time the crowd of 23,225 at Target Field cheered was when Caleb Hamilton came in to catch and bat ninth in the final two innings.

Well, to be fair, the decent number of White Sox faithful in attendance roared for all of their team's numerous runs. But the Twins could only muster a single hit in an 11-0 shutout loss. So a rookie making his MLB debut — even if he didn't do much more than catch a pop-out and thrill millennials with his 5 Seconds of Summer walk-up song — was about the only highlight Sunday.

Making the bad loss somewhat worse is this was the series finale before heading into an unprecedented five-day All-Star break. And the Twins went 1-3 in the series, getting outscored by a combined 32-10, and have now dropped seven of their past 10 games.

Despite a run of disappointing performances, the Twins (50-44) still finish the first half of the season with a two-game lead on the American League Central, including the third-place White Sox (46-46), who are three games back just behind Cleveland.

"Good teams are going to lose games. What I like most about this first half is we haven't played our best baseball, and we're in the position that we're in," said Chris Archer, who started for the Twins on Sunday. "… There were times where I thought we were close, and right now, obviously, we're not as close as we were maybe halfway through the halfway point.

"But that's encouraging, because we're in the position we're in, and we have not played close enough to our potential. I think once we get this little breather, get this break, I think we'll come out strong."

Archer seemed to be having one of his best starts four innings into Sunday's game. He had just come off the injured list that morning after dealing with some left hip tightness and allowed just two hits before he said he "ran out of gas" after making two outs in the fifth. He then gave up a walk and three consecutive hits, including a two-RBI single to Tim Anderson. Tyler Duffey then took the mound and let in two more runs on Andrew Vaughn's double to make it 4-0.

The seventh inning is where the White Sox put the game out of reach, thanks to a terrible inning from reliever Joe Smith. Smith gave up five hits and six runs, all from home runs, including back-to-back shots from Yoan Moncada and Vaughn before Josh Harrison's three-run home run. Emilio Pagan pitched the ninth and surrendered three hits and one more run on Adam Engel's double.

"We're not happy about this series. There's no way we're going to sit here and speak glowingly about the way we just played," Twins manager Rocco Baldelli said. "… That being said, I think it was a first half that was mostly good baseball. But we do have work to do. Everywhere we look, we have work to do.

"… We're nowhere near as good as we need to be right now."

Both pitching and offense have been inconsistent through the first 94 games of the year. On Sunday, the White Sox outhit the Twins 16-1, with the Twins' only hit coming from Alex Kirilloff in the fifth off starter Dylan Cease, who struck out eight in his seven innings.

Baldelli seemed confident in his team's ability to fix the problems while also celebrating the positives, such as topping the division and sending Luis Arraez and Byron Buxton to Los Angeles for Tuesday's All-Star Game.

With such a long layoff, plus another two days off before the end of July, the Twins will have plenty of time to reset. Some will fly home for a couple days with family. Others will stay around the Twin Cities to keep working. A few will try to kick any lingering injuries the grind of the season has prevented from healing.

All will likely wipe this discouraging vacation send-off from their brains immediately.

"It's time for a break," Duffey said. "I think that's pretty unanimous."