Twins blow five leads before falling to White Sox 9-8 in 10 innings

CHICAGO — Forget their recent history, the Twins didn't blow a ninth-inning lead on Wednesday. Then again, maybe they were too tired after surrendering leads in the first, fourth, fifth, seventh and eighth innings.

Minnesota churned out 13 hits and three home runs and took five different leads over the White Sox in the finale of a three-game series against the defending AL Central champions. But Chicago matched every hit, every homer, and finally took a lead of its own when it mattered most.

With the Twins' infield drawn in, Leury Garcia grounded a single past a diving Gio Urshela at third base in the 10th inning, scoring Eloy Jimenez to hand the Twins a monumentally frustrating 9-8 victory at Guaranteed Rate Field.

"It's a hard way to end a good series because we played a lot of good baseball. We did way more things the way we wanted [in] this series than not," Twins manager Rocco Baldelli said. "We've got to find a way to get through these innings clean, or limit some damage to one run instead of giving up multiple runs."

The loss ended the Twins' seven-game winning streak against Chicago and prevented them from widening their division lead over the Guardians to a season-high 5-1/2 games. It also exacerbated their recent pattern of coughing up leads late in games, after suffering the same fate three times a week ago in Cleveland.

But though he was disappointed, Ryan Jeffers found a different lesson in the sloppy loss, especially after his team outscored the White Sox 14-5 in the first two games of the series.

"It gives us some sort of confidence, knowing that we clearly are the best team in the division," Jeffers said. "That being said, we also know that if we want to get where we want to go, we need to be able to close these games out. … Everybody here can look in the mirror and say, 'We can do better.' "

He wasn't sparing himself in that judgement, not after grounding into a double play to end the 10th inning without a run, not after committing a passed ball that forced the Twins infield to be drawn in for the final play.

Jeffers didn't pitch, however. And it's pitching that has kept the Twins from running away with the AL Central lead, which remains at just 4-1/2 games despite Cleveland losing four straight in Detroit.

Joe Ryan wasn't his usual economical self, piling up 85 pitches in just four innings and putting runners on base in each one. Ryan let the Twins' first-inning lead slip away due to a throwing error of his own, and a two-run lead in the fourth disappear with the baseball that Jimenez launched just inside and barely beyond the left-field foul pole.

"The slider's got to be a little down and away there, not up-and-in and at 80 [mph]," Ryan said. Lasting only four innings, after feeling so good during warmups, he said, "felt like a slap in the face."

The real slaps at the Twins' chances at winning came when they turned to the bullpen, though.

Back and forth it went, with Jorge Polanco twice hitting home runs and Urshela lofting a two-run shot over the White Sox bullpen, only to see relievers Emilio Pagan, Griffin Jax and Trevor Megill allow game-tying runs, Pagan and Megill via home runs.

Each team's best reliever, Liam Hendriks for the White Sox and Jhoan Duran for the Twins, restored order with easy ninth innings, but neither was allowed to pitch another inning. Duran, who threw only nine pitches, would have pitched the 10th if the Twins had scored, Baldelli said, but he chose Jovani Moran when the game remained tied.

"I promise when we don't use him for multiple innings, or we don't run him out there back-to-back days on certain days, I sleep fine knowing that we're giving him the best chance to come back the following day and finish a game for us," Baldelli said.

That strategy will pay off, he's confident. And perhaps, he said, Wednesday's loss will too.

"Honestly, we're walking out of here hungrier than when we walked in," the manager said. "I mean that."