Martin Perez threw six no-hit innings and Andrew Vaughn, Andrew Benintendi and Michael A. Taylor each homered to lead the Chicago White Sox to a 9-0 victory over the visiting Minnesota Twins in the opener of their three-game series on Monday afternoon.
Perez (1-0) retired the first 11 batters he faced before walking Ryan Jeffers with two out in the fourth. He gave way to rookie right-hander Mike Vasil in the top of the seventh after striking out nine, walking three and hitting a batter. Perez threw 93 pitches, 54 for strikes.
Vaughn and Benintendi each hit three-run home runs and Taylor had a two-run homer for Chicago. Miguel Vargas singled, walked twice and scored two runs and Taylor finished 2-for-4 with two runs scored and two RBI for the White Sox, who scored their largest shutout victory since Sept. 3, 2022, when they blanked the Twins, 13-0.
Chris Paddack (0-1) suffered the loss allowing nine earned runs, tying a career-high, on six hits over 3 1/3 innings. He walked four and struck out two.
Chicago jumped out to a 3-0 lead in the first inning. Vargas led off with a single and Luis Robert Jr. followed with a walk. After both runners advanced on a groundout to second by Benintendi, Vaughn lined a home run into the left-field bleachers.
The White Sox extended the lead to 7-0 in the second inning on a bases-loaded sacrifice fly by Robert Jr., driving in Travis Jankowski who opened the inning with a bunt single, followed by Benintendi’s 100th career home run, a 401-foot blast to right. It was also the 13th homer against the Twins in his career.
Taylor made it 9-0 in the third inning with a two-run home run, a 411-foot drive to dead center that went just over the glove of a leaping Byron Buxton.
After that the only drama would be if the Twins would get a hit. That came with two outs in the seventh when Willi Castro lined a single to right off Vasil, who was making his major-league debut. Jeffers later added an infield single in the eighth for Minnesota, which fell to 0-4 for the season, getting outscored 28-6 in the process.
