Sale, White Sox slip up against Twins

In the White Sox' perfect world, they beat the Twins on Saturday at U.S. Cellular Field after the rousing Paul Konerko No. 14 retirement ceremony.

In the Sox' often cruel real world this season, they lost.

Ace starter Chris Sale was knocked around early, and Minnesota hung on for a 4-3 victory after Tyler Flowers took a called third strike to end the game with the tying run at second base.

Sale (3-2) gave up solo home runs to Torii Hunter and Eduardo Nunez in the second inning, and third baseman Conor Gillaspie's seventh error of the season set up the Twins for 2 more runs in the third.

Sale blamed himself for putting the White Sox in an early hole.

"We lost the game right there in the second inning giving up 2 homers," he said. "I just have to be down. No matter how hard it is, if it's up they're going to take advantage."

Sale pitched well enough to win, allowing 4 runs (3 earned) on 5 hits while striking out 10 in 8 innings.

"I think early on, they just seemed to be on his fastball," manager Robin Ventura said. "They get those quick homers and they got him early. After that, I think he started mixing it up. He threw great after that."

Sale stayed away from his nasty slider for much of the game.

"It's nothing I haven't done before," he said. "If anything, I should feel better by not overloading on sliders and things like that. It just (stinks) to lose a game that early in a game, but it happens. Just try to be better next time."

Going to bat for Ozzie:

Paul Konerko played for manager Ozzie Guillen for eight seasons, and he thinks he should be back in the game in some capacity.

Guillen managed the Marlins in 2012 but was fired at the end of the year.

"He's going to get back in the game somewhere, whether it's here or somewhere else," Konerko said. "The guy is a baseball man. You don't play as long as he did at shortstop in the major leagues and not have something to offer."

Konerko also said Guillen deserves a statue and having his No. 13 retired by the White Sox.

"The bottom line is this is professional sports and the man won a World Series as the manager of a team," Konerko said. "They are going to love him here. Ozzie was great to me. He treated me great. He was constantly asking what you needed and taking care of you when you had injuries.

"A compassionate man and great family guy as far as not only to his own family but your family.

"If you had anything wrong, baseball was totally secondary. He didn't care. Go home and take care of that. I don't care about this game today."

Guillen was on hand Saturday and got a huge ovation when he was introduced.