Sweep, sweep, sweep

Joe Mauer for the series: 8-for-14, five runs, three RBIs.
Delmon Young: 4-for-9, four runs, two homers, four RBIs.

One win would have gotten the job done.

Two wins, even better.

And the sweep ... well, it feels almost like overkill.

I don't think the Twins played all that well in Chicago. None of the starters got into the seventh inning. There are still a distressing number of infield throws that elude Michael Cuddyer. There are still too many baserunner blunders, still too many outfield mishaps.

But the lineup, even without Justin Morneau. remains deep. And after a series in Cleveland in which runs were scarce, they pounded the White Sox's three best starters for 16 runs. Four off John Danks on Tuesday. Six runs off Gavin Floyd on Wednesday. Six runs off Mark Buehrle on Thursday.

Starting pitching is the strength of the White Sox.  The Twins made it look like a weakness.

Error, hit or misplay (Alex Rios edition)

Eighth inning Tuesday night, bases loaded, and Denard Span drives a shot to deep left-center. Alex Rios, the White Sox center fielder, appears to have it in his glove, but the ball shoots up and out of the webbing. He grabs for it with his bare hand, but it again eludes his grasp and falls to the ground.  Three Twins run home.

Alex Rios' juggling act in center

Scoring ruling: Double.

And let the argument  begin.

My take on that play and that ruling:

1) I expect a major league center fielder to make that catch. Perhaps I've been spoiled by watching Kirby Puckett, Torii Hunter and Carlos Gomez patrolling center field for the Twins, perhaps my standards are too high, but I expect it to be caught.

2) There's not an official scorer who'd rule that play an error (perhaps if it's late in a no-hitter, then they might, but they'd feel cheap and guilty about it).

The two thoughts are compatible in this way: Imagine that the White Sox had in center field a player who isn't a bona fide center fielder. Carlos Quentin, let us say. He might give good effort, but he's not going to lay a glove on that ball. And the scoring ruling would be a double. (Or triple.) Rios is fast enough to lay a glove on it; should he really be penalized for being a better outfielder than Quentin?

I don't know what the advanced metrics say about Rios as a center fielder. I have to say that I'm  not impressed. He overran a single earlier Tuesday to allow a run to score. Back in July, his bizarre throw to nowhere handed the Twins one of the signature games of the 2010 season. It's possible that he's a good center fielder who just happens to have made his worst plays when facing the Twins. I think it's more likely that he ought not be a center fielder, just as I'm increasingly convinced Span isn't living up to the the Puckett-Hunter-Gomez standard.

It doesn't have to be an error to be a bad defensive play. Rios had a couple of bad plays; Span had one.

Matching up with the White Sox

Keeping the ball in the park has
been a real plus for Liriano.

The conversation was about pitching matchups, and specifically if it's really a good idea to have left-handers Francisco Liriano and Brian Duensing face the heavily right-handed White Sox.

Paul Konerko, Manny Ramirez, Alex Rios, Alexi Ramirez, Carlos Quintin, Gordon Beckham, Andruw Jones — the left-handed "power" for the South Siders in this Year-Without-Thome is A.J. Pierzynski, Juan Pierre and Mark Kotsay, which is to say they have none.

Into the stats we go:

• Liriano against Chicago this year: Four starts, 24.1 innings, 4.07 ERA, 2-0.
• Duesning against Chicago this year: Four games, all in relief, seven innings, 1.29 ERA, 2-0.

Brian Duensing is 3-0, 2.40
for his brief career
against the White Sox.

Duensing really hasn't been that good against the White Sox; he's given up nine hits in 25 at-bats, a .360 batting average. But it's all singles.

And that's really the key to both Liriano and Duensing. Liriano has allowed just four home runs all season (172.1 innings), Duensing seven (107 innings). One of Liriano's homers allowed was against the White Sox.

If Liriano and Duensing can continue to keep the ball in the park in that South Side launching pad, they'll be OK against even the right-handed White Sox.

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Poll results: We had 64 responses to my Rookie of the Year (AL) question. Thirty-one (48 percent) picked Austin Jackson; 22 (34 percent) Danny Valencia; nine (14 percent) Neftali Feliz; two (3 percent) John Jaso; and zero (0 percent, if you were wondering) Brendan Boesch.

I threw Boesch into the mix solely because Dick-n-Bert gave him the award back in July.

Talking Twins-White Sox

Chris Sale: One run allowed in 14 major league appearances.

Both the Twins and the White Sox are off today before their final regular-season series starts Tuesday.

We Minnesota fans know that the Twins didn't do much at the plate this weekend in Cleveland. Shut out by Fausto Carmona on Friday, shut out for 11 innings on Saturday, and Sunday's five-run first inning was fueled by a Cleveland error.

It still added up to two wins. Chicago, at home against Kansas City, also got two wins, and as with the Twins, can feel fortunate about it.

Kansas City led Friday 3-1 in the eighth inning but gave up three unearned runs to lose 4-3.

And on Sunday, the Royals scored six runs in the first inning and couldn't make it stand up. Phil Humber — remember him from the Santana trade? — got charged with the loss, but really, it was a group effort. The Royals used six pitchers; the lowest ERA of the bunch is now 4.41.

Those two games are good examples of why bad teams are bad.

Of interest concerning the Sox: Chris Sale, the rookie lefty, is now closing for them. He got the save Friday; he finished Sunday's 12-6 win, with J.J. Putz and Matt Thornton handling set-up duties. He hasn't pitched 20 innings yet, but he's sure got Ozzie Guillen's confidence.

Twins go to Chicago tied for first

Sometimes, as the saying goes, it's not who you play but when you play 'em.

The White Sox had to play the Baltimore Orioles in the O's first week under new manager Buck Showalter. For whatever reason, Buck's Birds are 6-1 — 3-1 against Chicago — and the upshot of that is that the White Sox have fallen into a tie with the Twins going into this three-game series in Chicago.

It's mid-August, and the Twins and Chisox have more head-to-head series after this one.

But it's worth knowing: The Twins have just one season-closing series left with an East Division team (Toronto). The White Sox have three games later this month with Baltimore (who may well have regressed by then), three with the Yankees, and seven in September with the Boston Red Sox.

Twins fans should hope that the Red Sox are still contending then and not just playing out the string.