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One out away from a no-hitter and facing the league’s leading hitter in Luis Arraez, Dylan Cease could’ve hoisted Rocco Baldelli on his own petard with a simple walk.

Baldelli threw in the towel on this game strangely early by lifting Carlos Correa and Max Kepler halfway through the game, and then he threw in the rest of the bathroom linens by pitching two position players in the ninth. If Cease pitched around Arraez, he would’ve had to face Kyle Garlick, who occupied Correa’s spot after a fifth-inning switch despite being a righty who mostly hits lefties.

But Cease went after Arraez, and while he missed on a slider to start the sequence, he ran a 97-mph on the upper, inner corner of the zone to even the count. He then went back to the slider on the third pitch, but he left it up, and Arraez lined an unquestionable, unretrievable single to the right-center gap to spoil Cease’s bid at history.

Cease then ended up striking out Garlick on four pitches to complete a 103-pitch shutout to emphasize the second-guessing, but I support Cease’s thinking. Arraez was the perfect final boss for the evening, and maybe slipping out of attack mode and into the stretch disrupts his mojo just the same.

That’s an argument we’ll be having for years, but one benefit of Arraez breaking it up with two outs is that you probably can’t blame the bottom of the eighth inning for icing Cease. Rocco Baldelli pitched second baseman Nick Gordon despite the fact that the first seven innings only required him to use two real pitchers.

The White Sox trashed Gordon for six runs on five hits and two walks over two-thirds of an inning, with Elvis Andrus blasting a grand slam to make it mock-worthy. Baldelli’s solution was to bring out an infielder glove for Gordon while telling Jermaine Palacios to pitch, and after another warm-up delay, he struck out Adam Haseley to end it.

Haseley walked to lead off the inning with a walk, so I wouldn’t blame him if he took one for the team to get Cease back on the mound. Either way, Cease returned to the mound looking just as locked in as before, so I think we can just say he lost one battle in a war thoroughly won.

After all, had Cease scattered four singles and a double over his nine innings, the night would’ve been only a little less sweet. The Sox jumped on Tyler Mahle for four first-inning runs, including a three-run blast by Eloy Jiménez. Mahle only lasted two innings in his return from the IL, and his velocity was way down.

Aaron Sanchez gave the Twins length out of the bullpen with five innings, but he made one big mistake that put the game out of reach.

The Sox put runners on the corners with nobody out in the fourth after AJ Pollock led off with a double and Josh Harrison singled to center. Seby Zavala struck out on three pitches, and Romy González almost did the same when he fouled off a pair of sinkers and a curveball that probably weren’t strikes. Sanchez tried doubling him up with breaking balls, but his 0-2 hanger ended up several rows deep in the left-center bleachers courtesy of González’s first MLB homer.

It was Cease’s evening from that point on, and he made it look remarkably simple. He only collected 14 swinging strikes and seven strikeouts on the evening, but he only allowed a handful of hard-hit balls, including Arraez’s in the game’s penultimate PA.

The lone blemish on Cease’s 2022 batch of statistics is his walk rate, and the way that eats into his ability to give his team an extra inning here and there. By pitching the most possible innings in this game and issuing only two walks, this performance helped to cut into those concerns at the best possible time. Cease’s shutout helps the Sox when they’re playing for their postseason lives, and bolsters his Cy Young credentials at a time when his two closest competitors are on the injured list.

Meanwhile, Miguel Cairo is 4-1 this season, and 4-0 when he knows full well he’s going to be managing the White Sox on that given day. That one pitch to Arraez was the game’s only bad news.

*The White Sox topped 10 runs at home for the first time in 2022.

*Cease wasn’t the only model of efficiency: The White Sox offense scored 13 runs on 13 hits by going 8-for-11 with runners in scoring position, including three homers accounting for 10 of those runs.

*Mark Payton made his White Sox debut as a defensive replacement for Gavin Sheets, but he also ended up drawing a walk off Gordon and scoring a run in the bottom of the eighth. If the White Sox made Michael Kopech trade numbers with him, they’d have one of the best-selling jerseys in the city.

*Cairo is pushing all the right buttons.

Asked about the Twins using a position player to pitch the eighth, Miguel Cairo smiled and said he hopes they use one tomorrow too.

Record: 67-66 | Box score | Statcast

Writing about the White Sox for a 16th season, first here, then at South Side Sox, and now here again. Let’s talk curling.

Not an All-Star btw. Jerks.

You know, if the Sox keep winning all these games in TLR’s absence, people might start getting some funny ideas…

Cease pitched the ninth like a gamer. Get the win, beat everyone. He’s a Cy Young candidate for a reason, no need to pitch around. No hitter would have been sweet but I’m glad he didn’t “back down”.

Good thing Tony wasn’t here for these… neither of these two games easy on the heart