Twins 5, White Sox 3: The Twins Experience Wins a Shocker in Chicago

Box Score
SP: Joe Ryan 7.2 IP, 5 H, 2 ER, 0 BB, 9 K (98 pitches, 77 strikes (79%))
Home Runs: N/A
Top 3 WPA: Brooks Lee (0.29), Luke Keaschall (0.24), Kody Clemens & Taylor Rogers (0.14)

Win Probability Chart (via FanGraphs) 

On Memorial Day afternoon, the Twins discovered that the White Sox are a solid baseball team. Joe Ryan got the call to face the South Side Mashers on Tuesday, in hopes of inching his squad back toward the .500 mark, while Chicago sent young righty Sean Burke out to keep the Twinkies in their third place.

PItchers Dominate, but Twins Break Through
The first three innings started where Monday night's game left off, with pitchers dominating the game and no hits to be found. Burke had failed to finish five full innings in each of his last three starts, so his success appeared to be fool's gold. In the top of the fourth, the Twins mined two runs on three straight hits. First, Trevor Larnach put a ball in play to right, and Rikuu Nishida couldn't come up with the diving catch in his second career start in right field. Larnach took the double on his stat sheet, and he quickly scampered home when Kody Clemens laced a slump-breaker off the right-field line for a rolling triple to put the Twins up 1-0.

With Clemens at third and nobody out, Austin Martin looked to keep Burke and the White Sox on the ropes. He laced a single up the middle to make it 2-0. What happened next didn't appear to be a game-wrecker at the time, but it would loom large as the pitching duel continued. Martin attempted to steal second base with offensive wet blanket Victor Caratini at the plate. Drew Romo threw a perfect strike to second to nab Martin, and the Twins didn't taste the bases again against Burke.

The Experience Dominates Early and Often
Joe Ryan took this early lead and immediately faced a test in the bottom of the fourth. Colson Montgomery and Chase Meidroth hit a couple of two-out singles to put Ryan on the ropes. Ryan swept out perennial Twins pest and phonics experiment Andrew Benintendi by inducing a harmless grounder to get his squad back into the dugout. 

Burke found his groove again, and took care of the Twins in order in the fifth, sixth, and seventh innings. When the White Sox took on Ryan in the bottom of the seventh, they again made some noise with two outs. A single off second base by Benintendi and a questionable hit by pitch to the light-hitting Tristan Peters got Ryan ranting and raving and throwing his glove around. Caratini went to the mound, settled down his ace, and the duo struck out Romo to again keep the zeros coming.

But the Murakami Experience is Inevitable
Derek Shelton let Ryan take the hill in the eighth with 88 pitches already thrown, with the top of the order (and power) looming. Nishida immediately put Twins Territory on edge with a leadoff single. While he danced the night away off first, Ryan managed to come back to strike out Sam Antonacci for his ninth of the night. American League-leading home run phenom Munetaka Murakami stepped to the plate, and this time, Ryan's attempt to sweep away the threat landed far out in the right field seats for Murakami's 19th of the year. Ryan pitched at a remarkable 76% strike rate, but it was just one too many.

Once the sadness settled in, Ryan managed to get one more out before Shelton brought in Anthony Banda to face the lefty Montgomery. Banda immediately gave up a blast to the wall... but not over it. With the go-ahead run now at second base, Banda faced Meidroth with everything on the line. Meidroth beat out a grounder to Luke Keaschall, but luckily, the umpires took the initiative to examine the play more closely because the Twins were all out of challenges. The call was overturned, and we headed to the ninth all square at 2-2.

Who Will Enjoy How This Experience Ends?
Brooks Lee got himself on first base to start the ninth by hustling out an infield hit. Josh Bell came in to replace Larnach against the lefty Sean Newcomb. That was a poor decision, as Bell grounded into a double play via the usual 5-4-1-Slide Rule review route, as Lee slid wildly past second base, wiping out the fact that Bell beat out the relay.

Banda stayed in to start the ninth, and Will Venable took charge by pinch-hitting Randal Grichuk for Benintendi. Banda made that move look foolish with a strikeout. Venable came out yet again to pinch-hit Derek Hill for Peters, and Shelton countered by bringing in the roller coaster that is the Andrew Morris save experience. Morris got the final two outs on quality plays from Keaschall, and bonus baseball would decide tonight's experience.

Clemens started out the 10th as the Twins' placed runner, and Martin struck out on a highly questionable check swing to leave him right there. This placed the pressure on the previously mentioned Caratini, who kept the offensive offense narrative going with a strikeout of his own. Shelton went to the Orlando Arcia experience for a pinch-hit in this crucial moment, with the White Sox's big guns waiting at the bottom of the inning. Arcia delivered with a hit, but Nishida made Ramon Borrego look foolish, as he threw out Clemens by a mile at the plate.

Unlike Shelton, Venable switched out his zombie runner for a faster option in Luisangel Acuña. Taylor Rogers had no margin for error with Nishida at the plate. While his throw home might have saved the top of the inning, Nishida foul bunted himself on out of the bottom of the 10th. Antonacci bounced a ball off of Rogers' leg, but Arcia held it in the infield to put runners at the corners for Murakami. This had to be how the experience ends right? Wrong! Rogers swept away Murakami on a grounder to Bell, who tagged Antonacci somewhere near Lake Michigan for a double play! Or, if you believe the actual call, he lined out to Bell who then doubled up Antonacci. Either way, the Taylor Rogers Experience sends us to the 11th!

Every Experience Needs to End
The game's goofy vibe rolled right on into the top of the 11th and off of third baseman Miguel Vargas's leg for a Keaschall leadoff single. This advanced new Manfred Man Ryan Kreidler to third base, and brought up the much-maligned James Outman for a potential hero moment. Outman, predictably, struck out instead, and it was left up to Byron Buxton to break the seal that had paralyzed the Twins' side of the scoreboard since the fourth inning. On a 3-1 pitch, home plate umpire Adam Beck called strike two, but Buxton challenged—and won a walk to load the bases. The newest man of the hour was Lee. New pitcher Tyler Davis got Lee to foul off two straight fastballs. Davis then slowed things down a bit, and Lee sped them back up with a bases-clearing double!!!

The Twins left Lee on the bases, and Yoendrys Gómez allowed the Sox's automatic runner to score in the bottom half of the frame to add some angst to the evening once again. But once a Grichuk grounder found its way from Kreidler's arm to Bell's glove, Twins Territory could exhale and soak in the experience in victorious style.

What’s Next?
The Twins look to keep the momentum rolling against Chicago in the third game of the four-game series. Twins rookie Connor Prielipp (1-2, 4.03 ERA) will make his first start on the South Side, and will face rising ace righty Davis Martin (7-1, 2.04 ERA). On paper, this looks like another big blast-or-bust kind of evening, First pitch is scheduled for 6:40 pm CDT.

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