White Sox demonstrate superiority over Twins in 11-1 romp

It's been clear for a couple of months now that the White Sox are superior to the Twins this season, as a 19-game margin in the AL Central standings makes clear. But it's becoming more obvious with each meeting how lopsided that superiority has become, in such a short time.

On Monday, it took five pitches for the difference to become unmistakable.

Tim Anderson hit that pitch from Beau Burrows into the front row of seats in left field, and the rout was already on. Eloy Jimenez clobbered a pair of home runs for the second consecutive day, Lucas Giolito limited the Twins to two hits in eight innings, and the White Sox poured it on in an 11-1 drubbing at Target Field.

Wait, it was Target Field, right? Several dozen Chicago fans chanted "Let's go, White Sox!" in the ninth inning, adding insult to an already pretty insulting night.

It was Chicago's 13th victory in 17 meetings this season, and as if the rivalry wasn't one-sided enough, Jimenez and Luis Robert, freshly healed from lengthy injuries, faced the Twins for the first time all season. Oh, and combined to drive in six runs.

Boxscore: White Sox 11, Twins 1

"He's a real big, strong, physical dude, a guy that hits the ball over the fence and all that," Twins manager Rocco Baldelli said of Jimenez, who missed four months because of a torn pectoral muscle. "But he's a good hitter first, and he makes life difficult for the opposing pitchers."

As do all the White Sox this year. The 11 runs Monday gave them 120 for the year against the Twins, the most ever in a single season of the rivalry's 61-year history, and marked the seventh time they have scored at least eight, also the most ever in Twins-White Sox history. But it's worse than that: Chicago has limited Minnesota to three runs or fewer nine times. Only in four seasons has that occurred more frequently — and there are still two games to come.

Giolito had little trouble adding to that record Monday, dominating the Twins for the third time in 2021, his only mistake an eighth-inning solo home run by Miguel Sano. "He is tough. He has excellent stuff, real swing-and-miss stuff," Baldelli said of the righthander, who didn't give up a hit until the fifth inning, when Luis Arraez bounced a ball off his leg for an infield single. "Tonight, his command matched his stuff and he was just exceptionally difficult on us."

Even the defense of the two teams stood in contrast. Robert made a diving catch in center field in the second inning to rob Sano of a hit, and Cesar Hernandez made a leaping catch of a line drive. The Twins? Sano dropped a popup in short right field that cost the Twins a run, and Jake Cave pulled up on a catchable ball when Max Kepler nearly collided with him, allowing another run to score.

The Twins' hopes of silencing the Chicago offense rested on Burrows, plucked off the waiver wire in June, and Edgar Garcia, similarly rescued from the Reds on waivers last month, plus Charlie Barnes, the lefthanded rookie facing a team of lefty-devouring hitters. It worked about as well as those résumés would suggest, though Garcia retired seven of the eight hitters he faced in his Twins debut.

But the game was already out of reach by then. After Anderson started the game with a homer, Burrows walked Hernandez and, after striking out Jose Abreu, served up Jimenez's first homer, which ricocheted off the limestone facing above the batter's eye in center field more than 450 feet away. Brian Goodwin doubled in the inning, too, and scored when Sano dropped a pop-up in short right field, a two-base error.

Burrows' second inning wasn't much better. Anderson singled, Hernandez walked again, and Jimenez launched one just inside the foul pole in left field, staking the Sox to a 7-0 lead.

"It's a tough outing, there's no way around that. I talked to him after the two innings, and he was obviously upset with himself," Baldelli said of Burrows, whose ERA rose to 13.91 in his five-game Twins career. "I totally understand that. … He just needs to relax and move past this one."

This season, against that White Sox powerhouse, that applies to all the Twins.