MINNEAPOLIS -- Two men on for the White Sox in the fifth inning with the Twins holding a three-run lead, No. 2 hitter Yoán Moncada due up and a rookie right-hander on the mound well past his season-high in pitches. That’s usually a textbook situation for Minnesota manager Rocco Baldelli to turn to his bullpen -- but he didn’t.\n\n
Minnesota starters carried a 9.37 ERA against the South Siders through nine meetings into Monday evening’s sweltering series opener, and even five scoreless innings of two-hit ball from their 6-foot-9 rookie looked like it might not be enough to hold off a late Chicago surge. Still, the Twins held on -- and added on -- for an 8-5 victory at Target Field to snap a four-game losing streak against the White Sox and, at last, hand Ober his first career win.\n\n“I think there was a particular sharpness to what he was doing,” manager Rocco Baldelli said. “When you throw that slider off of that good fastball, with that good rising action, you're going to get good results, and he made some really good hitters look bad today.”
Though Ober departed with a 3-0 lead after the fifth, and the Twins tacked on enough insurance runs to make it a 6-1 game after six, the White Sox closed the gap in a big hurry with four runs on four hits and a walk in the top of the seventh. But
In a normal game, Ober might not have even been allowed to finish those five frames, as his pitch count crept up well past his previous season high of 82 while he issued a two-out walk to Leury García and allowed a single to Tim Anderson, bringing the tying run to the plate. But in the dugout, Baldelli decided to leave left-hander
The Twins have been extremely careful with Ober’s usage throughout the season due to his injury history in 2019 and his lack of a ‘20 season. He had also been hit particularly hard by the White Sox in his last start. He came back with a vengeance by matching a career high with seven strikeouts across his five innings, retiring 11 of the first 12 hitters he faced and working through traffic in his final two innings to grind out a scoreless effort.\n\nArmed with a new game plan, Ober threw 60 fastballs among his 93 pitches and commanded them well -- aside from in the fourth inning, in which the control artist uncharacteristically issued consecutive walks.
That fastball command was immediately apparent when Ober struck out Anderson, Moncada and José Abreu on heaters above the zone in the first -- and that helped his slider play up with five swings and misses, too. In fact, his 13 whiffs generated were, by far, the most of his career.\n\nOber’s reward for that effort?\n\nApparently, there’s a tradition in the Twins’ clubhouse in which pitchers get put in a trash bin and showered in beer to celebrate a first career win -- and Ober and