White Sox beat Twins 4-1, Minnesota falls to 67-74
A 4-1 loss to the White Sox leaves the Twins at 67-74, and Aaron Gleeman's math says the club's playoff hopes are down to a longshot before tonight's series continues in Chicago.
Bell's homer is Minnesota's only run in a 4-1 loss
The Chicago White Sox beat the Twins 4-1 on September 4, with Zebby Matthews taking the loss after allowing 4 earned runs on 4 hits over 5.0 innings, with a walk and 4 strikeouts. Josh Bell went 2-for-3 with a home run and the RBI that produced Minnesota's only run, and Kody Clemens added 3 hits in 4 at-bats.
White Sox1-4The Twins are 3-2 in their last 5 games, a stretch that also included a 15-2 win over Detroit on September 1 and an 11-1 win the day before that, followed by back-to-back losses — a 6-11 defeat to the Tigers on September 2 and Friday's 4-1 loss in Chicago.
11-19 since August 1, per Aaron Gleeman
Aaron Gleeman noted after Friday's loss that the Twins have gone 11-19 since August 1, and that Minnesota would need to finish 14-7 over its final 21 games — matching its best 21-game stretch of the entire season — just to end the year at .500.
The standings back him up. At 67-74, the Twins sit seventh in the AL Wild Card table, 4.5 games behind Cleveland for the final spot, with an elimination number of 15.
Upcoming
The Twins are in Chicago tonight, with Taj Bradley (10-6, 3.85 ERA) opposing Chicago's Anthony Kay (9-7, 4.28 ERA). Bradley was sharp in his last turn, allowing 1 earned run over 7.0 innings with 9 strikeouts in a win over Detroit on August 31. Kay's last start went the other way — 5 earned runs over 4.2 innings in a loss to Houston that same day.
Chicago is favored tonight, and the total reads as middling, not a game either side expects to be decided by a flood of runs. For the Twins to get back in the series, they need Bradley to give them the length Kay didn't get in his last outing, and one more solid turn from a rotation that has kept them just close enough to still be talking about October.