White Sox, moving past Sale fiasco, get past Twins in 10

MINNEAPOLIS – Chris Sale started making the rounds with teammates and White Sox officials

Thursday night after the Cubs beat him in his return to the White Sox at Wrigley Field.

“Got it all squared away,’’ Sale said Saturday. “Got on the same page. We are back to where we were before, trying to win games. Putting that in the forefront.’’

On that front, the Sox got back to winning with a wacky 6-5 victory over the Minnesota Twins in 10 innings, snapping a three-game losing streak and raising their record to 51-53 with one game left before the trade deadline. Miguel Gonzalez, who had a much better July (2.27 ERA in five starts) than Sale (1-2, 4.85), the Sox’ ace, gave up two runs (one earned) in seven innings.

Former Sox Eduardo Escobar’s three-run homer against Matt Albers in the eighth ruined Gonzalez’ bid for a win, but the Sox tied it in the ninth against Brandon Kintzler on Tim Anderson’s double and Melky Cabrera’s third RBI and won it in the 10^th when Avisail Garcia and Dioner Navarro doubled against lefty Fernando Abad.

Michael Ynoa had walked two and loaded the bases in the ninth but escaped to pick up his first career win. David Robertson got a 1-2-3 save.

Sale, doing what he can to put the “fiasco” – in his owns words — he created by cutting up throwback jerseys he was supposed to pitch in but didn’t want to wear last Saturday, also met with manager Robin Ventura, who sent Sale home from U.S. Cellular Field Saturday after things went off the rails in the clubhouse.

Sale was suspended for five games, and, adding to the level of tension between the Sox ace and his manager, said Ventura should demonstrate more support for his players.

“I had a long talk with him,’’ Ventura said. “We continue to move on, and it’s about baseball. That’s the professional part of it.

“I’m not going to get into what we talked about but we had a long talk and it was good.’’

Sale seemed relaxed even though his name is out there in trade rumors involving the Texas Rangers and Boston Red Sox, albeit none of them seeming to have much significant traction. He declined to share specifics about his conversation with Ventura, saying only he talked to “everybody involved personally one on one,’’ meaning management types as well. “Cleared the air, had some good talks, learned some things. Talked about things we already knew. It was good, it was very productive.’’

When asked about his relationship with Ventura, though, Sale would only say “everyone is making a little bit bigger deal of this.’’

“Ten or 15 years ago, this wouldn’t have been a story. There’s no such thing as Twitter and I don’t think as much information leaked out as it does nowadays. It’s just something that people gravitate to. It’s the nature of the beast—I understand that.’’

Sale said the jerseys he cut up, which are believed to be in his possession, might be used in some sort of charity act. The idea was his wife’s, he said.

“When I get back to Chicago, I’m going to try to talk to some people and figure out the right thing to do with it,’’ he said.

“She’s the smart one in the house apparently,’’ Sale said. “So any time something bad happens like what happened, you always try to find something positive. If we can make a positive out of negative, it’s perfect. Works out well.’’

The Sox have been surrounded by negatives in the last week or so, but none of related to their starting pitchers, who have pitched to a 2.17 ERA over the last 13 starts. The Sox are 6-7 during that span.