CHICAGO — Like the rest of the weekend, all the Minnesota Twins needed to beat the Chicago White Sox on Sunday were home runs.
Joe Mauer’s two-run homer was his first since June 22 and Brian Dozier added a three-run shot, all in the fifth inning, and the Minnesota Twins beat the White Sox, 5-2.
The Twins, who won three out of four in the series with Chicago, went deep 11 times over the weekend and scored all 19 runs against Chicago thanks to the long ball. They won the series despite going 3-for-37 with runners in scoring position, including 1-for-10 Sunday.
Usually, that kind of futility would make winning difficult and close to impossible. It didn’t Sunday.
“We’ll take the home runs if that’s the way we’ve got to score runs right now. As long as you win ballgames,” Twins manager Ron Gardenhire said. “We won a series. It seems like we missed a lot of opportunities. But we did put the ball in the seats.”
Both Minnesota’s Kevin Correia (8-8) and Chicago’s Jose Quintana worked four scoreless innings to begin the game, but only the Twins starter kept that going.
Chris Colabello led off the fifth with a single and Doug Bernier walked before Dozier hit a 1-0 Quintana pitch into the White Sox bullpen for his 11th homer of the year. Jamey Carroll then singled before Mauer hit a 1-1 delivery just over the fence in right-center for a 5-0 lead.
Before Dozier’s blast, Quintana (6-4) hadn’t allowed a homer in 19 2/3 innings.
“It happened quick. He pitched good except for that one inning,” White Sox manager Robin Ventura said. “It wasn’t anything that elongated by anything. It just happened.”
It also benefited Correia, who won for the first time since beating Cleveland on July 20. He pitched seven shutout innings and gave up five hits while striking out seven for Minnesota, which has won seven of its last 10.
Correia had failed to go more than two innings in two of his prior three starts and was shelled for seven hits and six runs in his previous start by Kansas City on Aug. 5.
On Sunday, Correia said he was sick during that start. He “felt 100 times better” against the White Sox, and also managed to avoid giving up any home runs, though he did allow three long fly balls that fell short of the wall in the seventh.
“I just kind of kept the ball out of the middle, though, and had good enough movement to keep it enough off barrels to where no one really squared it up too much,” Correia said.
Quintana’s development has been one of Chicago’s bright spots this season, but the young left-hander was undone in the fifth on Sunday. In five innings, Quintana allowed the five runs in the fifth, and six hits to lose his second decision since May 27.
The White Sox were trying to salvage a split of the series after losing Friday’s doubleheader and winning Saturday, but they ended up losing three of four in the series following a sweep of the New York Yankees. Chicago also fell to a league-worst 13-34 against its division and has dropped 13 of 14 games against the American League Central.
Chicago was three outs from getting shut out for the 12th time, but Adam Dunn hit his 27th homer off Casey Fien to begin the ninth. Conor Gillaspie also homered with two outs in the inning.
“You can’t speak for everyone nobody comes here every day and expects to lose,” Dunn said. “We prepare every day to win that day and when things don’t work out you try to put it away and you know you’ve got another one tomorrow.”
NOTES: After the game, Minnesota traded Carroll to Kansas City for a player to be named later or cash. … Ventura said he and Paul Konerko have talked more about managing playing time, and not about whether Konerko would continue playing after this season. … Gardenhire was asked if there would ever be another player-manager, and he said “there’s so much asked of a manager, media-wise and everything else, I don’t know if you could ask somebody to do both parts of it.” … The White Sox announced they received INF Leury Garcia from the Texas Rangers as the player to be named later in the deal for OF Alex Rios. … Gardenhire said Minnesota C Ryan Doumit, who was placed on the seven-day concussion disabled list Friday retroactive to Thursday, says he feels good. Gardenhire said, “We’ll have to wait until the time’s up” to see if he comes back when he’s first eligible. … On Monday, Cleveland’s Danny Salazar (1-0, 3.29 ERA) will face Minnesota’s Andrew Albers (1-0, 0.00 ERA) in Minneapolis. … The White Sox’s Chris Sale (7-11, 2.77 ERA) will oppose Detroit’s Doug Fister (10-5, 3.50 ERA) on Monday in Chicago.