BRIAN HALL
Associated Press
MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — Lester Oliveros’ return to the majors only added to the Minnesota Twins’ pitching woes.
Oliveros made his first major league appearance since June 14, 2012 but allowed two homers in the 10th inning as the Chicago White Sox sent Minnesota to its eighth loss in 10 games.
Dayan Viciedo broke a 3-all tie in the 10th with a solo home run off Oliveros (0-1) and added his second two-run homer of the game for his first career multi-homer game as Chicago won for just the fourth time in its last 14 games.
Oliveros — one of the Twins’ September call-ups Monday — allowed three runs on three hits while getting only one out.
“He’s got a great fastball, but there’s two different levels here,” Minnesota manager Ron Gardenhire said. “You can get away with it down there, but you better be able to spin the ball and he didn’t really spin the ball very good here tonight. So, it was his first shot up here, first time back in a long time. He’s going to have to spin the ball a little bit better than that to make that fastball have some success.”
The Twins could be headed to another last-place finish in the AL Central, and both teams are battling each other to stay out of finishing last in the division.
However, with rookies Danny Santana and Kennys Vargas leading the way, Minnesota led the AL in scoring in August.
Vargas, the big power-hitting designated hitter, opened the scoring on Tuesday with his fifth home run into the first row in the second deck in right field, a two-run homer after Santana singled. Santana had another two hits and an RBI.
Starter Tom Milone quickly gave away the lead when Flowers connected in the top of the second inning, and Carlos Sanchez doubled home a run as part of a three-hit night.
Milone lasted just 3 2/3 innings, giving up three runs on five hits and four walks.
“He had a rough time,” Gardenhire said. “The first inning was good. I think after that he just started just missing and they wouldn’t chase. I think that’s part of his game, having hitters chase his balls, the change-ups and all those things. He was just off the plate.”
Acquired from Oakland on July 31, Milone has a 7.84 with Minnesota and has only made it out of the sixth inning once in five starts. He’s allowed allowed at least three runs in his past four starts, none longer than 5 1/3 innings.
“Just falling behind hitters,” Milone said. “I need to get back to attacking, attacking the zone, staying low, just being aggressive.”
BIG FLY
Twins SS Eduardo Escobar couldn’t shoo away a large flying insect that was hovering around his helmet during an at-bat in the fourth. It eventually landed on his neck and had to be plucked off by home plate umpire Greg Gibson.
SLOW DOWN
Outfielder Jordan Schafer has shown off his speed since joining Minnesota on Aug. 5 with 11 stolen bases in 25 games. He had three more hits on Tuesday and is hitting .341 with the Twins. But Schafer made two costly baserunning errors on Tuesday.
In the seventh with a runner on, Schafer beat out an infield single, but the throw from third baseman Marcus Semien got away from Paul Konerko at first base and Schafer turned toward second base. The ball deflected quickly back to Konerko and Schafer was caught in a rundown before Kurt Suzuki was able to score.
Schafer ran through a stop sign at third base and was tagged out in the second inning with Minnesota threatening to score more.
“The one at third base, (third base coach Scott Ullger) was holding him up the whole way and he just kind of non-chalantly rounded the bag and got tagged out it looked like,” Gardenhire said. “You’ve got to be more aware than that. The ball’s coming in from the left-field line and you’ve got to be more aware around the bag.”
TRAINER’S ROOM
TWINS: Add SS Nick Gordon to the list of Twins’ top prospects to end their 2014 season injured. Gordon, the fifth overall pick in the 2014 draft, broke his left index finger and will miss the postseason for Elizabethton, Minnesota’s rookie ball affiliate.Gordon joins CF Byron Buxton (concussion), 3B Miguel Sano (elbow), P Alex Myer (shoulder) and P Kohl Stewart (shoulder) to wind up missing the end of the 2014 with injuries.
WHITE SOX: Jose Abreu sat out with general soreness. Chicago manager Robin Ventura hopes to have the rookie slugger back Wednesday.
UP NEXT
Trevor May (0-4, 10.42 ERA) has walked 14 batters in his first 19 major-league innings for the Twins. He’ll try to turn it around against LHP John Danks (9-9, 4.88) when this two-game series concludes on Wednesday night.
Copyright 2014 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
