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Konerko caps rally as White Sox stay hot

Jun 9, 2008 - 10:28 PM By Gene Chamberlain PA SportsTicker Contributing Writer

CHICAGO (Ticker) -- The Minnesota Twins made a game of it this time - but with the same end result.

The Chicago White Sox completed a four-game series sweep Monday with a 7-5 victory over the Twins behind two home runs from Nick Swisher and one from Paul Konerko.

The four-game sweep left Chicago (37-26) leading Minnesota (31-33) in the American League Central by 6 1/2 games and concluded only the fourth 7-0 homestand in franchise history. The White Sox scored 40 runs and collected 68 hits in the four-game series.

"I'm not surprised at the way we are hitting because I know we have great hitters," said White Sox manager Ozzie Guillen, who had blasted his team eight days earlier for lack of offense. "I'm more surprised that we did it against the Twins, who are a pretty good team.

"It's not easy to sweep anyone in a four-game series, but hopefully we can keep it going on the road."

With Chicago trailing, 5-4, Orlando Cabrera led off the seventh inning with a double and moved to third on Alexei Ramirez's single to left. Carlos Quentin's roller to third base plated Cabrera with the tying run, and Konerko drilled an offering from Matt Guerrier (3-2) just over the wall in right field to give the White Sox a 7-5 lead.

"I didn't have really anything going all day," Konerko said. "That was one of those balls I was really surprised to see it go over the fence. I put good wood on it, but I just felt like it was probably going to go to the track and that would be it. It just kind of kept going."

Matt Thornton (2-1) picked up the victory in relief of starter John Danks with a scoreless seventh inning. After Scott Linebrink worked a perfect eighth, Bobby Jenks put runners on first and third with none out in the ninth but escaped unscathed for his 15th save.

"A disappointing series for us," Twins manager Ron Gardenhire said. "They played great. They outplayed us the whole series, they outhit us, outpitched us, and it shows. We came in here and didn't live up to our end of it. We have to go to Cleveland and try to right the ship."

After scoring 10, 11 and 12 runs in winning the series' first three games easily, the White Sox cooled off only slightly against the Twins and starter Glen Perkins.

Swisher became the first White Sox batter to homer from both sides of the plate since Jose Valentin achieved the feat on July 30, 2003 at Texas. His solo homer while batting righthanded in the fourth off Perkins pulled Chicago within 3-2.

In the sixth, Swisher's two-run lefthanded shot off reliever Jesse Crain got the White Sox within 5-4.

It was the sixth time Swisher has homered from both sides in a game and seventh occurrence in which a White Sox player has done it.

"That's always a pretty cool thing to happen," Swisher said. "And if you talk to any switch hitter who has ever played the game, it's hard to find yourself where you feel good from both sides of the plate at the same time. Today happened to be my day."

Swisher had been mired in a slump but has three homers his last two games and eight for the year. He credited batting coach Greg Walker with helping him regain confidence.

"I'm wearing (backup catcher) Toby Hall's pants, so there's another (explanation for his hot streak)," Swisher said.

The Twins built a 5-2 lead against Danks by scoring three runs in the fourth and two in the fifth. Michael Cuddyer supplied two hits and three RBI and Jason Kubel added a two-run double.

"We made it interesting at the end," Gardenhire said. "We held them down for a while, but then we didn't make enough good pitches at the end."

The game was the makeup of a contest rained out April 10.