CHICAGO — Brooks Lee came to the plate in the 11th inning with one out, the bases loaded and a costly mistake two innings earlier still fresh in his mind. He fouled back two straight fastballs from White Sox reliever Tyler Davis, then turned on a 0-2 splitter that caught too much of the zone and ripped it to the wall in right field. The three-run double gave the Minnesota Twins a lead they would not surrender, and they walked out of Rate Field with a 5-3 win over the Chicago White Sox.
The victory was not clean. Minnesota blew a late lead when Munetaka Murakami hit a two-run homer off Joe Ryan in the eighth inning to tie the game. In the 10th, Kody Clemens was thrown out at home plate to end the inning. In the ninth, Lee contributed to the damage when his slide past second base drew an interference call on replay, turning what could have been a rally into an automatic double play.
"I was too juiced up," Lee said. "I didn't want that to affect me. My mindset was that if I get up again, I've got to be 100 percent committed to what I'm doing or else someone else is going to pick me up."
He got up again. Batting 2-for-5 on the night, Lee now leads the Twins with 30 RBIs. Two days before the White Sox game, his two-run, sixth-inning single proved the margin in a 6-5 win at Fenway Park. Hitting.259/.315/.416 on the season, Lee has been the most productive bat in a lineup that has needed every run it can manufacture.
The Twins have won four of five games on their three-city road trip, and all four wins are by two runs or fewer. Twins manager Derek Shelton made no apologies for the stress his club has inflicted on observers.
"We don't have any that are good for my heart," Shelton said. "The resiliency of this club and the fact that they play 27 outs, or 33 outs, really proud of them. It's a good win for us."
The bigger story around Lee this week is not just the clutch hitting. Days before the road trip began, the Twins moved him off shortstop and asked him to play third base. The decision came after the club demoted Royce Lewis to Triple-A St. Paul, creating an opening in the infield that also exposed a real defensive problem. Sports Info Solutions ranks Minnesota tied for 27th in the majors with minus-15 Defensive Runs Saved. Lee rated as the worst defensive shortstop in the majors by that same metric, posting minus-8 DRS.
Starting Friday in Boston, Lee shifted to third. Shelton said the conversation was direct and honest, and Lee asked good questions before giving the manager the answer he wanted.
"Whatever was going to be best for us to win," Shelton said Lee told him. "That's exactly what you want a player to say."
Lee said he was surprised by the conversation and believed his shortstop play had been good enough. He did not fight the decision.
"I felt like I played good shortstop," Lee said. "But ultimately, I think they see me as a better third baseman. I respect that and I think I can be. Just to have a home anywhere in the infield and in the lineup, that's the most important thing."
With Lee at third, the Twins will rotate players into shortstop. Ryan Kreidler is the team's best defensive option at the position. Orlando Arcia is also in the mix.
"It's crucial to win one-run ballgames early in the year, games that are extra innings or tied late," Lee said. "They punched back in the eighth inning. That's all right. We're just going to continue to do our job. Some stuff's out of our control. But it seems like we did a great job all the way around, and then we created the opportunity a few times and cashed in."
Minnesota needed Lee to cash in Tuesday, and he did. The Twins are a below-.500 team that keeps finding ways to win ugly. At 27-28, they do not have the luxury of treating character and margin for error as separate questions.
