Byron Buxton homered, doubled and drove in two runs and Harrison Bader hit a three-run homer to lead the visiting Minnesota Twins to a 6-1 victory over the Chicago White Sox on Wednesday in a rain-delayed rubber game of their three-game series.
Pablo Lopez (1-1) picked up the win, allowing one run on four hits over seven sharp innings. He walked one and struck out five. Jhoan Duran and Danny Coulombe each threw a scoreless inning of relief.
Buxton, Carlos Correa – who snapped a season-opening 0-for-18 streak – and Ty France each had two hits for Minnesota, which won its second straight game following an 0-4 start.
Brooks Baldwin homered for Chicago, which lost for the fourth time in five games. Sean Burke (1-1) picked up the loss, allowing six runs on seven hits over 4 1/3 innings. He struck out one and hit a batter.
Following a three-hour, 20-minute rain delay before the first pitch, Minnesota took a 1-0 lead in the first inning when Buxton drilled a 446-foot home run to left-center. It was Buxton’s 22nd career homer against the White Sox, his most against any team.
The Twins extended the lead to 4-0 in the fourth on Bader’s third home run of the season, a two-out line drive into the left field bullpen that drove in France, who had singled, and Willi Castro, who was hit by a pitch.
Minnesota parlayed three doubles into two more runs in the fifth to make it 6-0. Correa lined a one-out double down the left field line, then scored on Buxton’s bloop double to shallow center past a diving Travis Jankowski. One out later, France doubled down the line in left to drive in Buxton.
Baldwin broke up the shutout in the seventh with a home run to right-center, his first of the season and third of his career.
–Field Level Media
