Twins bring an end to their 0-for-2025 beginning with one big inning against the White Sox

CHICAGO – Jose Miranda dropped a bloop single into right field in the sixth inning Tuesday, a ball off the end of his bat, and the Twins dugout erupted in a way it hadn’t for days.

The high-five lines were busy. Players shouted in celebration and smacked the top of the dugout railing to make more noise.

After what felt like an eternity in the early part of the season, players felt like some luck was back on their side in an 8-3 win over the Chicago White Sox at Rate Field.

The Twins snapped a 19-inning scoreless streak. They had a five-run outburst after they totaled six runs in their previous four games. Harrison Bader added a three-run homer to left field, where the wind was blowing in, during the ninth inning.

“Yeah, we needed that,” said Ty France, who had two hits and a walk. “We needed that bad.”

The Twins couldn’t break through against White Sox righthander Shane Smith, who made his major league debut after he was the first pick in last December’s Rule 5 draft. They compiled two hits and two walks through the first five innings.

Ryan Jeffers couldn’t help but laugh during the fourth inning. Byron Buxton swatted an elevated fastball to left field, and White Sox left fielder Andrew Benintendi instinctively raced to the warning track before the ball was caught up in the wind. Benintendi ran forward several steps to make the catch.

The next two Twins batters crushed hard ground balls directly at infielders, then Benintendi opened the bottom half of the inning with a single on a check swing.

“That was the point where I was like, ‘You can’t make this up,’ ” Jeffers said.

Smith, used as a reliever at the end of last season, seemingly ran out of gas in the sixth inning. He issued back-to-back walks to Buxton and Trevor Larnach before he was pulled, and he exited to a standing ovation from the fans sitting behind the White Sox dugout.

White Sox reliever Penn Murfee didn’t have much time to warm up — Smith threw 73 pitches — and the Twins pounced. Jeffers ended the shutout when he lined an RBI single to right field. Ty France, the next batter, whiffed on the first two sweepers he saw before poking the third one up the middle for an RBI single.

“The first two were in the other batter’s box and that one was in the zone,” France said. “Just tried to shorten up and simplify my approach a little bit.”

BOXSCORE: Twins 8, White Sox 3

Standings

After Willi Castro was hit by a pitch, Edouard Julien lined a game-tying RBI single over the shortstop’s head. Julien pointed toward his teammates in the dugout in celebration as he ran up the first base line. Then it was Miranda’s turn to keep the party alive in the dugout.

“I don’t want to call it frustration — it just felt like nothing was going our way, then you’d see the other team and [Benintendi] had three check-swing singles tonight,” France said. “It seems like it’s just been going up against us. For us to put together a rally, put together a good inning, it was comforting.”

Murfee, pulled five batters after Smith received a standing ovation, walked off the mound to boos raining down from the crowd.

“Three, four, five games never defines your season,” Twins manager Rocco Baldelli said. “There’s way too much baseball for that. But we were waiting for a nice five-run inning. You knew it was coming at some point.”

The Twins rallied from a three-run deficit after Simeon Woods Richardson allowed five hits and two runs across four innings and Louie Varland gave up a solo homer to Nick Maton.

“I’m really proud of our group because I never really sensed an energy drop,” Jeffers said. “They kept their head on straight and stayed positive.”

Before Bader removed any potential late-game drama when he crushed his three-run homer, the Twins defense may have saved the day.

In the bottom of the eighth inning, when the White Sox had two runners on base with one out against reliever Griffin Jax, Carlos Correa made a diving catch to his left on a line drive from Miguel Vargas. Correa broke into a smile as he pointed toward a couple of teammates.

“He’s older and he’s starting to slow down a little bit out there, so he’s trying to make it look a little harder than it is,” Jeffers joked. “Everyone knows it was amazing.”