The Chicago White Sox lost two of three to the Minnesota Twins and Wednesday’s series finale featured not one or two, but three horrific plays.
In the seventh inning, Byron Buxton landed on his neck between first and second base after a nasty collision with White Sox infielder Lenyn Sosa, who was called up from Triple-A on Tuesday following Tim Anderson’s knee injury. You obviously feel terrible for Buxton, who has a long track record of injuries throughout his career with the Twins.
Really nothing Buxton or Sosa could have done on this play. It looked like the second base umpire might have blocked Buxton’s vision, as he crossed between him and Sosa to get out of the way in the infield dirt. Buxton was going full speed and ended up delivering a knee straight to the left side of Sosa’s face, flipping over and ultimately landing on his head.
Buxton was able to get up under his own power and walk back to the Twins dugout. While he was about to be pinch-hit for in the eighth inning, Minnesota manager Rocco Baldelli said after the game that the team does expect to still have Buxton with the Twins against the New York Yankees this weekend.
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Buxton, who is now in his ninth MLB season with the Twins, has only played in more than 100 games once in his career, which came in 2017, when he played in 140 games. Since then, his season high in games played has been 92, last year.
Somehow, the Buxton play wasn’t the worst thing that happened to one of Minnesota’s players on Wednesday.
In the fourth inning, Kyle Farmer took a direct hit to his mouth on a pitch from Lucas Giolito. Farmer was down on the ground for a few minutes as the crowd in Minnesota stood in silence.
Like Buxton, it appears as though the Twins avoided a disaster with Farmer. While he does need some dental work after taking one off the grill, Farmer did not suffer a fracture to his face.
Last, but certainly not least, the third horrific play came from the White Sox defense.
Because of recent injuries, the White Sox trotted out Gavin Sheets to start in right field and a routine fly ball turned into a triple for the Twins that eventually led to their first run of the game in the fourth inning.
You can blame manager Pedro Grifol all you want, but he can only play the guys who are on his roster. This goes to the top of the White Sox front office and the heat should be on GM Rick Hahn. This team is once again relying on guys playing out of position because of poor roster decisions during the past couple of years.
The 3-1 loss to the Twins dropped the White Sox to 5-8. The defense was incredibly bad in the three-game series in Minnesota and the offense has only scored nine runs in their last four games after scoring 20 runs in their first two games against the Pittsburgh Pirates.
Injuries, bad defense, inconsistent offense, definitely not what fans were hoping for to begin the 2023 season.
