Imperfect win, but Sox still find reasons to smile

MINNEAPOLIS -- What’s the best way to get over a costly run-scoring defensive mistake in the field?

A three-run home run would be a good answer. That plan clearly worked for White Sox third baseman Hanser Alberto during his team’s 4-3 victory over the Twins in Monday afternoon’s series opener at Target Field.

Alberto committed a two-out error on Nick Gordon’s hard-hit grounder in the bottom of the third, allowing Minnesota (6-4) to score its first run of the game off Dylan Cease. But after Yasmani Grandal’s single off Kenta Maeda tied the game in the top of the fourth, Alberto connected on an 0-1 hanging slider for his first homer as a member of the White Sox (5-6).

The homer propelled Chicago to its first 2023 victory within the American League Central; this game was one of only three games it will play against the division in April.

“That’s the least thing you can do. If you’re out there, you want to help,” Alberto said of the homer after the fielding miscue. “You go out there and try to make all the plays to help the pitcher, help the team.

“When you don’t do it, you feel bad. So I was angry. But I controlled myself because you can’t take the defense to the offense. You’ve got to separate, and I think I did a really good job.”

The White Sox entered Monday with just four errors as a team in 10 games and were praised for their defense pregame by manager Pedro Grifol. But in fairness to Alberto, the game was a fairly rough defensive effort all around.

Cease admitted to not being at his sharpest, but the plays not made behind him produced 19 extra pitches and had the ace right-hander departing after five innings, six strikeouts and 99 pitches. Elvis Andrus committed a fielding error that prevented Cease from a perfect fifth, and Matt Wallner’s grounder went through first baseman Gavin Sheets’ legs that same inning, allowing Gordon to score from first.

The throw from right fielder Oscar Colas appeared to have a chance to nail Gordon at the plate but instead was cut off by Sheets. Cease worked out of further trouble by striking out Willi Castro.

“It’s just part of baseball,” Cease said. “There were just as many plays made behind me that saved me as there are that hurt me. At the end of the day, I’m just focused on executing.”

“We’ve played good defense all year long, and we’ll continue to do that,” Grifol said. “Just one of those games where we had a few mistakes, but our pitching picked us up, Alberto picked himself up. It was a great team win.”

A strong defensive play from Romy González bailed out the White Sox in the eighth. González, who entered at second base for Tim Anderson in the bottom of the sixth inning with Andrus moving to shortstop, ranged far to his left to glove a Christian Vázquez grounder on a hit-and-run attempt and threw out the catcher at first.

Castro easily made it to third on the play and if the ball had gotten away from González, he might have scored the tying run. Instead, the White Sox picked up a second out and Reynaldo López fanned Michael A. Taylor as part of his four-out save featuring three strikeouts.

Anderson exited with left knee soreness sustained while he was covering on a play at third in the fourth, while Yoán Moncada didn’t start at third base and was getting evaluated during the game due to back soreness that had bothered him for a little while. The White Sox overcame those injuries and some temporary defensive miscues to even their record at 2-2 on the road trip, sparked by Alberto’s blast.

“He’s been around for a long time, and there’s a reason, right?” Grifol said. “He’s a good teammate, and he’s great to have in the clubhouse and so on and so forth, but there’s no free passes here. You have to be able to do something special, something that’s going to make you stay in the big leagues, and he does.

“He plays the game hard. He’s a great teammate. He seems to come up big in big situations, and he’s always ready to play. He can sit for a week and give you this type of performance or play a couple of days in a row and give you this type of performance.”