Minnesota Twins 8, Chicago White Sox 3
Shane Smith was superb in his major league debut, pitching scoreless into the sixth and giving up no runs on two hits/four walks. Yet history will show he was the White Sox starter who broke the rotation’s scoreless streak, as he was yanked with two outs in the sixth, at 73 pitches, with runners on first and second. Reliever Penn Murfee surrendered an 0-1 single to Ryan Jeffers (to be fair, on an EXCELLENT pitch away), and that’s the play that broke a five-start scoreless streak.

Worse, of course, was that Jeffers’ single lit the fuse on a five-run rally that swung the game from 3-0, White Sox, to eventual loss. Harrison Bader piled on with a three-run homer off of Jordan Leasure in the eighth.

Charlotte Knights 4, Norfolk Tides 3
OK, so their offense shrunk back to 98-pound weakling after Charles Atlasing all weekend, but the Knights did just enough to run their season start to 4-0. Who needs run differential, anyway?

The big blow came from Mike Tauchman, beginning his rehab assignment tonight. His hammy was taught for a three-run blast in the fifth, stealing the lead right back from Norfolk and keeping it for good.

Otherwise it was all about the pitching for Charlotte, as five hurlers combined on an eight-hitter that also saw 18 strikeouts. That’s right, six innings’ worth of outs came via the K. Justin Dunn spun nine of those, but left the game(at 86 pitches) in line for the loss, if you can believe it.

Kyle Teel was 0-for-3 to drop his average to .400, bench the kid. In more concerning developments, Colson Montgomery was dropped to sixth in the order despite facing a righty starter, and struck out another three times, leaving him 1-for-17 with 12 Ks this year.

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