Sox Walkoff Versus Twins in Game Filled with Oddities

The White Sox walked off with a wild 7-6 come from behind victory over the Minnesota Twins in 11 innings, keeping pace for a 162-0 campaign.  Samuel Deduno allowed Leury Garcia, who reached base on an 0-2 bunt single, to score on his second wild pitch of the inning.

Garcia’s push bunt along the third baseline started off the bottom of the 11th inning, but that’s where the oddities just began.  Garcia advanced to second base on a Deduno balk and then advanced to third base on Deduno’s first wild pitch of the inning.  The Sox really did nothing to win the game themselves, as Adam Eaton and Marcus Semien both struck out before Garcia scored the winning run on Deduno’s second wild pitch.

The Sox were able to push the game to extras with a ninth inning rally that was, not surprisingly, assisted by the Twins.  The Sox scored the tying run with one out in the ninth inning, when third baseman Trevor Plouffe’s throw home to nail pinch runner Adrian Nieto (yes, a catcher called to pinch run) sailed wide of catcher Kurt Suzuki.  The ninth inning rally was started by a leadoff single by pinch hitter Paul Konerko down the left field line, in which would have been a double for 99% of the league.  Nieto then pinch ran for Konerko.

More than four hours before Garcia crossed home with the game-winning run, Felipe Paulino started his first major league game in two years and pitched quite admirably.  Paulino struggled with his control a little bit, having to pitch 109 pitches in just five and one-third innings, but escaped by giving up just one earned run and struck out six Twins.

Offensively, Garcia had two hits in four at bats, driving in a run and scoring one as well.  Adam Dunn hit his first home run of the year, a high fly ball over the center field wall, which brought the Sox within 5-4 at the time.  Alexei Ramirez was two-for-three with two RBI and two stolen bases.

And in another strange occurrence, Jose Abreu, in his second major league game was intentionally walked twice by the Twins to get to 400+ career home run hitter Adam Dunn.  Dunn grounded out and walked in those two at bats.

The White Sox go for the sweep Thursday afternoon with Jose Quintana going up against Phil Hughes.