The Chicago White Sox suffered one-run losses in each of the first two games of their series against the Minnesota Twins at Guaranteed Rate Field.
They were in another tight game Wednesday, leading by two runs in the sixth inning.
Reliever Steven Wilson issued a one-out walk. And after the second out, he surrendered two more walks.
The Sox made a pitching change, and Dominic Leone got Willi Castro to hit a grounder to Paul DeJong. The ball got away from the shortstop, and two runs scored on the error.
Two more walks in the next inning led to two more runs for the Twins, who went on to beat the Sox 10-5 in front of 12,216.
Any momentum from sweeping three games over the weekend against the Tampa Bay Rays disappeared for the Sox, who were in turn swept in three games by the Twins.
The Sox are 6-25, their worst record through the first 31 games of a season in franchise history. They are 2-18 against the American League Central, their worst start in that category since the three-division format began in 1994. Eleven of those 18 losses have come by one or two runs.
Wednesday’s game was a one-run deficit until the Twins broke it open with four in the ninth.
“There’s no margin for error,” manager Pedro Grifol said. “Championship teams don’t care about those margins, they just get it done and find a way to get it done.
“Look at (the Twins). They’re playing good baseball right now (winning 10 straight). But they’re also playing good fundamental baseball.”
Control was a major culprit Wednesday. The Sox issued seven walks. As of the conclusion of their game Wednesday afternoon, the Sox led the American League allowing 126 walks this season.
“Free passes are hard to overcome,” Grifol said. “They’re hard to overcome in this league, especially with a team that puts the ball in the seats and slugs the ball. If you’re going to allow free passes to these guys, we’re going to get our ass kicked.
“When you’re talking about leading the league in walks, obviously we’re not happy about that. We talk about it, we work on it, we’ve got to execute.”
The Sox jumped ahead early with Tommy Pham playing a big role. The center fielder drove in Robbie Grossman with a double in the first and hit a solo home run in the third.
The Sox led 4-2 in the sixth when Wilson surrendered the three walks.
“I was missing arm-side,” Wilson said.
Ope! Just gonna sneak right past ya! pic.twitter.com/rgLbC8wlIO
— Minnesota Twins (@Twins) May 1, 2024
Leone induced the grounder the Sox needed, but the ball went under DeJong’s glove and through his legs.
“Ball’s spinning like crazy and (Trevor) Larnach did a good job at second base blocking my view,” DeJong said. “Ball just kind of took off sideways on me and I whiffed and unfortunately it costs us two runs.
“It was to my right off a lefty. Little changeup off the end of the bat kind of spinning. He did a good job of blocking my view until I couldn’t quite get a good view of it and just missed it. Unfortunately, that’s not a play that I want to see go through my legs. It’s a tough break for us.”
Leone walked two of three batters he faced in the seventh inning. Max Kepler put the Twins ahead 5-4 with an RBI single against Tim Hill. Jose Miranda followed with another RBI single.
“We’ve just got to be ready and fighting and willing to win a close game,” DeJong said. “We’ve been losing a lot of close games. This one got out of hand for us at the end there. But for a while, we were in control. Just got to be able to put teams away.
“We’ve been scoring early lately and that’s been good. Our offense is looking a lot better. It’s just a matter of lining up offense, pitching, defense together and playing a good team game. We couldn’t quite do that all today.”
The Sox — whose .194 winning percentage is the worst in the majors — have been swept in six of their 10 series.
“It’s the little things, the little details that just add up during the course of a game,” Grifol said. “It’s an 0-2 pitch, it’s moving a runner over. Whatever the case may be. I’m not saying today, I’m just saying that over time, in 11 ballgames that are one run, we can go back and look at something small that became something big.
“We’ve got to clean it up. If not, we’re going to get our ass kicked every night.”
