After the Twins fell behind after the very first pitch Sunday, it took them awhile to recover. But they did, courtesy of Byron Buxton.
After striking out in his first three at-bats, Buxton belted homers in his next two. His first, a two-run homer in the seventh, tied the score, and his second — a three-run, 469-foot bomb in the bottom of the tenth — gave the Twins the 6-4 victory and first series sweep of the season at Target Field in front of an announced crowd of 16,197. The Twins improve to 8-8 while Chicago falls to 6-9.
To start the extra innings, Yasmani Grandal scored Danny Mendick — who started the 10th on second base — with his base-hit RBI and the White Sox took a 4-3 lead.
With Nick Gordon starting on second in the bottom of the 10th, Jose Godoy walked with one out. After both runners moved up on a wild pitch by Liam Hendriks, Buxton unloaded with the longest walk-off HR tracked by Statcast (since 2015).
After busting out with nine runs in Saturday's win, the Twins struggled at the plate. They loaded the bases three times in but scored just one run on Gio Urshela's sacrifice fly in the third. Chicago starter Lucas Giolito went four innings with four hits, three walks and nine strikeouts.
Tim Anderson smacked a leadoff homer to the bullpen on Twins starter Chris Archer's first toss. Archer allowed another run in the third inning after loading the bases. Andrew Vaughn drove in one score and looked to have two, if not for Trevor Larnach's left-field toss to Jose Godoy at the plate for a tag-out.
In his third start, Archer lasted just three innings, giving up three hits, and three walks with two strikeouts. Josh Winder entered the game as the long reliever and kept three scoreless inning before letting Mendick deliver a leadoff homer in the seventh.
