Twins throttled by White Sox in series opener

Sonny Gray took a 100 mph screamer off his pitching arm in the fourth inning Thursday, a scary moment that caused the game to be delayed for several minutes while he was checked out. And that wasn't even the most painful part of the inning.

No, Luis Robert's 452-foot grand slam, a blast that landed a half-dozen rows deep in the second deck in left field, probably pained the ultra-competitive Gray even more. It all but ended both his night and his team's, as Chicago waltzed its way to a 12-2 victory over the Twins.

And if that wasn't bad enough, the Twins left in a grouchy mood after benches cleared on the final out. Gilberto Celestino hit a pitch from Jose Ruiz that bounced directly down on home plate. White Sox catcher Seby Zavala made contact with the Twins outfielder in order to field the ball, then tagged Celestino as he stood there.

"Celly's not going to go anywhere on that play. He's thinking it's a foul ball," Twins manager Rocco Baldelli said. "Their pitcher was talking for some reason. I'm not sure why he was talking. It really didn't have anything to do with him."

Both teams converged on home plate, as Ruiz and Celestino yelled at each other, but the teams were quickly separated, and "that was really the end of it," Baldelli said.

More importantly, Baldelli said, Gray was uninjured by the line drive at his body.

"It hit me between my [right] shoulder and my elbow, kind of in my tricep area," Gray said of Josh Harrison's hot smash. But he said the line drive didn't rattle him, didn't contribute to what came next.

After throwing a few pitches to make sure he could continue, Gray proceeded to allow a hit to Zavala and a walk to All-Star shortstop Tim Anderson. The Twins cut off a run on a force play at the plate, but that didn't matter once Robert connected with a 1-1 slider that put the game out of reach.

"Walking Anderson once I got him to a 1-2 count, that's the at-bat I go back to. The grand slam, I thought [the pitch] was OK," said Gray, who also was victimized in the first inning by a ground ball that hit second base. "I threw every pitch with conviction and had attack on my brain. That's where I've got to start."

The Twins' bullpen, which on this night included Nick Gordon for a three-run ninth, didn't hold Chicago in check, but it probably didn't matter. Minnesota was weirdly dazzled by the unpredictable windup and wide assortment of pitches offered by 15-year veteran Johnny Cueto, who kept putting runners on base — seven hits in his six innings, plus two walks — and letting the Twins find creative ways to leave them there.

The Twins left the bases loaded in the first inning, got three straight hits to open the second, and stranded Byron Buxton on third base in the third, after he led off with a triple. Only one run scored in all that.

"We can work all we want" to set up those prime scoring opportunities," Baldelli said. "As a whole, you need a lot of good at-bats to do that. We're just not getting those same types of at-bats once we've gotten those guys in those positions."

Only Gio Urshela, who laced a liner into the left field corner, was able to drive a run home until Kyle Garlick's ninth-inning home run off Ruiz, and the Twins went 1-for-10 with runners in scoring position.