EditorsNote: removed "pinch-hit" in last graf. Other minor edits
Ronald Torreyes was hit by a pitch with the bases loaded in the 12th inning to drive in the winning run, and Miguel Sano hit his 30th home run of the season to lead the Minnesota Twins to a record-setting 9-8 victory over the Chicago White Sox on Tuesday in Minneapolis.
Torreyes was struck on his right forearm by a 1-1 pitch by Jose Ruiz (1-4), the sixth Minnesota batter to reach base in the inning. Gonzalez, who finished 3-for-6, had tied the game earlier in the inning with a two-run single.
Ryan LaMarre also homered on a night when the Twins became the first team in baseball history to have five players hit 30 home runs in a season. Sano joined Nelson Cruz (37), Max Kepler (36), Eddie Rosario (31) and Mitch Garver (30) in the 30-homer club with a 482-foot drive into the third deck in left-center.
It was just 8 feet shy of the longest homer hit at Target Field, a shot by Hall of Famer Jim Thome in 2011.
Tim Anderson homered and had four hits, Eloy Jimenez had three hits, and Ryan Cordell, Zack Collins and Adam Engel also homered for Chicago (65-86), which lost its fourth straight game, three of them in walk-off fashion.
Minnesota (93-58) jumped out to a 5-0 lead in the third inning. LaMarre led off with his first home run of the season, and Eddie Rosario, who finished 3-for-6, made it 2-0 with an RBI double off the wall in right-center. Sano then followed with his record-setting, three-run homer.
Chicago cut it to 5-1 in the fourth on an RBI single by James McCann, driving in Jimenez, who had doubled. The White Sox closed within 5-3 an inning later on a sacrifice fly by Anderson and an RBI bloop single by Jose Abreu, his 119th RBI of the season, tops in the American League.
The White Sox then tied it in the sixth when Collins and Engel homered on back-to-back pitches by Twins reliever Trevor May.
Anderson led off the 11th by lining a 400-foot homer off the facing of the second deck in left to give Chicago its first lead, 6-5.
The Twins rebounded to tie it in the bottom half against closer Alex Colome. Jonathan Schoop led off with a single, and pinch runner LaMonte Wade Jr. advanced to second on a groundout, to third on a wild pitch and scored on a sacrifice fly by Mitch Garver.
Cordell hit a two-run 434-foot home run in the 12th inning off Ryne Harper (4-2) to put the White Sox back in front, 8-6, before the Twins rallied to win it in the bottom half of the inning.
--Field Level Media
