CHICAGO (AP) - Ron Gardenhire won his first replay challenge, but the Minnesota Twins’ manager conceded afterward that it cost him his starting pitcher.
Kevin Correia came out after a lengthy delay, the Twins bullpen couldn’t hold a lead and the White Sox beat Minnesota 7-6 on Wednesday.
“The 20-second challenge that took a long time,” Gardenhire said of the review in the top of the seventh inning. “I don’t know what was going on, but it ended up taking a long period of time and you end up losing your starter because of it.”
Chicago came back from a 6-4 deficit in the ninth on Leury Garcia’s run-scoring single off Glen Perkins and Adam Eaton’s RBI grounder.
“A tough loss,” Gardenhire said. “A lot of things happened in that game, throughout that game. Ultimately, you have the lead and you get the ball to your closer, you feel pretty good about it. It just didn’t work out.”
Correia gave up three runs in the second inning, but settled down from there and didn’t allow another run. He likely would have come out for the seventh because he had thrown just 82 pitches to that point, but the lengthy inning compounded by a delay of 4 minutes, 40 seconds for replay ended his day.
Eaton appeared to drop a ball but it was ruled a catch initially before eventually being overturned.
“It wasn’t really a situation where I couldn’t go back out there,” Correia said. “It was 35 degrees and I don’t know how long that inning was taking already. But it pretty much came down to that review. Without that review, I definitely think I’m going back out there.”
The speedy Garcia bunted up the third-base line on an 0-2 pitch leading off the 11th and took second when, with Eaton at the plate, Samuel Deduno (0-1) never came to a set position and balked.
Eaton struck out, Deduno bounced an outside pitch that hit off Kurt Suzuki’s glove as Garcia advanced, and Marcus Semien took a called third strike.
After an intentional walk to Jose Abreu, Deduno threw way outside on a 3-2 to pitch to Adam Dunn, and the ball hit off Suzuki’s glove as Garcia came home.
“They kept grinding, even being down, the offense fighting back,” White Sox manager Robin Ventura said. “It was just a great job by these guys with quality at-bats. An 0-2 bunt, he handles the bat well. We’ve seen Eaton do it in spring training. Guys have that kind of confidence, it becomes a big play.”
Ronald Belisario (1-0) pitched 1 1-3 hitless innings for the win.
Notes: Twins reliever Casey Fien was diagnosed with a bruised left ankle when hit on a ball up the middle off Eaton’s bat ending the seventh inning. … White Sox C Adrian Nieto made his major league debut as a pinch runner in the ninth. … White Sox 3B Conor Gillaspie (flu) was scratched from the lineup. … LHP Jose Quintana starts for the White Sox in the series finale against the Twins, who start RHP Phil Hughes in his Twins debut. … Gardenhire said pitcher Brian Duensing (paternity leave) was to arrive in Chicago on Wednesday night and be activated before Thursday’s.
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