White Sox fall to Twins in 10; Anderson expected to miss 2-4 weeks

The injuries are piling up for the White Sox.

Sound familiar?

Heavily favored to repeat as AL Central champions last season, the Sox couldn't stay healthy and finished with a disappointing 81-81 record.

Looking to flip that script this year, general manager Rick Hahn was guardedly optimistic when the White Sox emerged from spring training and the opening four-game series at Houston in relatively good physical shape.

"At some point over the course of the season, somebody is going to pull a hamstring," Hahn said. "It's going to happen. However, the work that our performance group has done, the communication, the investment we've made in human capital and technology has helped put guys in a position to maximize their performance.

"We have another seven months ahead of us, so I'm not going to quite do a victory lap."

The Sox have been without Liam Hendriks since spring training. The all-star closer completed his final round of chemotherapy for Non-Hodgkin lymphoma last week and could be back by late May or early June.

But the injured list has been growing the last week or so, with Eloy Jimenez (hamstring) and Joe Kelly (groin) being sidelined while Yoan Moncada has been dealing with a sore back.

Before Tuesday night's 4-3 loss to the Twins in 10 innings, the White Sox announced all-star shortstop Tim Anderson is on the 10-day IL with a sprained left knee and is going to miss 2-4 weeks.

Anderson hurt his knee in Monday's 4-3 win over Minnesota, colliding with the Twins' Matt Wallner after moving over to cover third base on a double play try.

Last season, Anderson missed the final two months with a finger injury.

"It's so frustrating," Anderson told reporters at Target Field Tuesday. "You do everything right to try to prevent from creating injury and just something I couldn't control. I just have to roll with it, but it definitely sucks because I know that I was doing everything I could.

"Everybody in the organization knows I was doing everything I could to try to stay healthy and it just didn't work out that way."

The White Sox's pain continued Tuesday night in the extra-inning loss to Minnesota.

With Moncada missing his second straight game with a back issue - he's not expected to play Wednesday, either - Hanser Alberto was playing third base in the 10th and his throwing error on Michael Taylor's sacrifice bunt allowed Willi Castro to score from second base with the winning run.

"That was a bad, bad throw," Alberto said. "It was a completely bad throw, right to the runner. I threw a little bit sidearm and that's why the ball ran into the runner. It was the game."

Trailing 3-2 in the ninth inning, White Sox center fielder Luis Robert Jr. tied the game with a home run.

The Sox jumped out to a 2-0 lead in the first inning on Andrew Vaughn's double, but they failed to add on against Twins starter Pablo Lopez with runners on second and third and one out.

Lance Lynn started for the White Sox and allowed 3 runs on 7 hits over 6 innings to go with 10 strikeouts.