After the opening batter, John Danks should have gotten a bad feeling about the rest of the game. Danks walked Twins outfielder Carlos Gomez, an inauspicious start to any ball game. Knowing the centerfielder is a speedster; Danks began focusing on the base-runner closely. His keen move to first base picked-off the base-runner and all was well…until the next batter.

Danks then gave up two straight singles, a walk to load the bases, then a single to score the first run. After Jason Kubel hit a sac fly to make the score 2-0, Danks caused Craig Monroe to groundout to end the top of the first but the damage was already done. This bad start was a sign of many things to come and the White Sox couldn’t avoid the big innings. The Twins only scored in three of the nine innings but besides the two-run first inning they scored five in the third and then gave the deciding blow with five more in the sixth.

After a great season-opening start in a win at Cleveland last week when he only allowed two hits and one run, Danks surpassed those totals in the first inning on Wednesday. The pitching line for Danks is an ugly 2.1 innings pitched in which he allowed seven runs, three walks, and seven hits. It wasn’t that Danks was giving up extra-base hits either. In fact, all his hits allowed were singles. They just found holes and the batters were throwing darts all over the field.

The defense was there for the White Sox tonight also as they didn’t have any errors (unlike the Twins who had three).

The Sox did attempt to rally back throughout the game. In three consecutive innings (third, fourth, and fifth) the Sox had solo homeruns. The game would have been a lot more interesting if there were players onboard during those blasts, but tonight was not the night. Nick Swisher had his second homerun as a White Sock, Paul Konerko had his first of the season, and Joe Crede continues his hot start to the season by adding homerun number three.

After Crede’s homerun cut the score to 7-3, the Twins quickly closed the door of hope when Jason Kubel hit a grand slam off of reliever Nick Masset.

While the Sox file the game under the loss column they don’t have the luxury to dwell on it. On Thursday night the Sox look to take the series. Both teams are sending veterans on the hill as Livan Hernandez of the Twins faces-off against Jose Contreras. This will be a tough test for Chicago seeing as Hernandez is 2-0 thus far and has gone seven innings in each game. If the Sox rattle him early and force a premature call to the pen then they’ll be well on their way to win number six.

The White Sox lost this one to the Twins by a final of 12-5.

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