Minnesota Twins Fall to Chicago White Sox 5-3 on Opening Day

If Opening Day is a showcase of things to come, well, the Minnesota Twins are surely going to struggle this season. The Chicago White Sox beat the Minnesota Twins 5-3 on Monday afternoon, behind the strong armed All-Star Chris Sale and the bat of Alejandro De Aza.

The scoring started in 2014 in the second inning for the White Sox when De Aza hit a no-doubter into the left field bleachers of U.S. Cellular Field. De Aza wouldn’t stop there though, he also hit a solo homer in the sixth.

As you probably have it figured out, Ricky Nolasco did not have a great Twins debut. Nolasco gave up five runs on 10 hits in six innings pitched. His opposition in Chris Sale went 7.1 innings giving up three runs on five hits with eight strikeouts.

The Twins were strikeout victims a lot last season and were again on Monday. The Twins struck out 10 times in the game and are on pace to strikeout 1610 times this season. I’d expect that projection to go down.

Good news for the Twins was that new catcher Kurt Suzuki looked excellent, getting all three of the team’s RBIs from his much debated two-spot in the lineup. Aaron Hicks and Chris Colabello also had a two-hit game, both notching a single and a double on the day. Trevor Plouffe also had a double in the game.

The Twins bullpen gave up only one hit in two innings of work and that was off of Casey Fien. Anthony Swarzak and Caleb Thielbar also pitched for the Twins.

Jose Abreu and Adam Dunn added the other two RBIs for the Chicago White Sox.

The Twins play next on Wednesday at the Chicago White Sox. First pitch is at 1:10.