The Minnesota Twins bashed four home runs and scored eight runs in the third inning of an 11-3 thrashing of the Chicago White Sox on Saturday night at Target Field.
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Shields was charged with five runs after giving up four walks and five hits.
Minnesota Twins’ Byron Buxton, left, celebrates with Brian Dozier after hitting a grand slam against the Chicago White Sox in the second inning of a baseball game Sunday, Sept. 4, 2016, in Minneapolis. “Halfway during the year it was kind of the goal that I wanted to get him”.
Dozier leads the majors with 21 homers since the All-Star break. The Twins have 162 homers with 26 games to go, the most they’ve hit in six years with a pace to post their highest total since their championship season in 1987. Santiago for gave up four hits and three walks, boosted by an 11-2 lead he took into the fourth. Santiago was coming off his best performance with Minnesota – 6 1/3 scoreless innings at Cleveland. He also smashed two long home runs, marking his first multi-home run game in over a year (Aug. 8, 2015 vs Royals). Shields – also a midseason acquisition – kept on struggling. Between the San Diego Padres and Sox he’s 5-17 with a 6.07 ERA and would be in jeopardy of losing 20 games. Shields has a 7.50 ERA with his new club, averaging exactly five innings per turn. It could be argued that, no matter where a team sits in the standings, that there is no such thing as a meaningless game, especially when one considers that there are fans in the stands watching their first ever game or hometown fans (like those yesterday at Minnesota’s Target Field) who cheered on their last place team. Shields allowed a leadoff walk before Sano’s two-run blast with one out gave the Twins a 5-2 lead.
The White Sox had earlier rallied from a 10-9 deficit in the ninth inning on Avisail Garcia’s bases-loaded, two-run single off Brandon Kintzler. Shields experienced some tightness in his back after leaving the game.
“I would say this is my best moment of the season”, Abreu said though an interpreter.
“They got a lot of runs, a lot of hits”. While the two-time American League MVP and Hall of Famer’s (Thomas) numbers over his first three full seasons with the White Sox (.318, 32, 109;.323, 24, 115;.317, 41, 128) were somewhat superior to those put up by Jose Abreu (.317, 36, 107;.290, 30, 101 and .293, 22, 86* season in progress), the similarities between Frank Thomas (career.301 hitter) and Jose Abreu (a career.300 hitter) are most definitely there: both statistically and in their physical prowess: Thomas, who now works for Fox Sports, was listed as Six-foot-five while weighing as much as 275 lbs.is only slightly larger than Jose Abreu, who is listed ad Six-foot-Three while weighing 255 lbs. “He’s just not missing many pitches. He had to pay the price for that along the way”, Molitor said. Sano hit his 22nd and Murphy added his first for the Twins after being recalled a day earlier.
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James Shields didn’t feel quite right warming up before the game. Twins: RHP Trevor May (back) and LHP Tommy Milone (biceps) threw in the bullpen before the game and are set to face live batters in a session on Tuesday. Morneau is expected to be in the starting lineup on Monday when Chicago begins a three-game series against Detroit.
