David Sandlin's first major league start against the Minnesota Twins couldn't have gone better last week. What would he do for an encore Monday night?
Well, I'm sorry to report Sandlin's second outing was pretty much a disaster. Five days after limiting the Twins to only one hit over six innings, this time the White Sox rookie right-hander got hit around for eight earned runs in four-plus innings.
The Sox saw their five-game winning streak come to an end with a 9-6 loss at Target Field.
What was different for Sandlin (1-1) this time? Walks and a lot of traffic on the bases. In his previous outing, he retired the final 18 batters he faced and never threw a single pitch out of the stretch. He walked nobody. On Monday, Sandlin walked four and surrendered eight hits. He was on his heels in almost every inning he pitched.
Despite the high score, believe it or not, this was a 1-1 game into the bottom of the fourth. That's when Minnesota's No. 9 batter, Tristan Gray, took Sandlin deep for a two-out grand slam that made the score 5-1.
That could have been a fatal blow to the Sox, but they answered quickly with three runs in the fifth. Miguel Vargas hit a two-run homer, and Andrew Benintendi followed with a solo homer to make it 5-4.
Suddenly, Sandlin had a new lease on life. Alas, he loaded the bases with no outs in the bottom of the fifth on a single and two walks. That would be the end of his night, and Tyler Davis allowed all three of his inherited runners to score -- plus one more run -- and the Twins were in full control of the game at 9-4 headed to the sixth inning.
The score stayed that way until the ninth inning, when Vargas delivered his second two-run homer of the night to make it 9-6. However, the Sox could get no closer.
Vargas is up to 15 homers, tied with Colson Montgomery for second on the team, but poor pitching doomed the Sox on this night.
The Sox are 32-28. They fall 1.5 games back of the idle Cleveland Guardians in the AL Central.
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