Today at 4:10 p.m. ET, the Minnesota Twins and Chicago White Sox kick off their 2014 seasons as they go head-to-head in Opening Day action live from U.S. Cellular Field in Chicago. The game can be live streamed here. Minnesota fans can hear all of the action on 96.3 K-TWIN while Chicago fans can do the same on WSCR 670.
Chris Sale takes the hill for the White Sox today while the Twins counter with Ricky Nolasco. Sale went 11-14 last season with a 3.07 ERA while Nolasco went 13-11 while spending time between the Miami Marlins and Los Angeles Dodgers in 2013 with a 3.70 ERA. Nolasco makes his third Opening Day start after starting twice in the season opener with the Marlins (2009, '13)
Both teams will look to bounce back from rough 2013 seasons that saw them each occupy the bottom two spaces in the American League Central division. Both teams know it will be hard to dethrone the defending champion Detroit Tigers, battle tested Cleveland Indians and young up-and-coming Kansas City Royals.
"You have to pitch, you have to hit, you have to score and you have to play defense," White Sox manager Robin Ventura said of the division via MLB.com. "There's not one thing that you do that helps you contend. You have to do all of them in order to win. Detroit's won it the last few years, and they have a combination of everything. So unless you do that, you're not going to be close. We proved that last year."
The White Sox are coming off of a 63-win last place finish while the Twins finished 66-96 for the second year in a row but finished a spot higher in the standings in fourth place. Ron Gardenhire returns for his 13th year as skipper of the Twins.
Gardenhire had high praise for Nolasco, who the team acquired through free agency with a four-year $49 million deal, the largest pact in franchise history.
"He just knows what he's doing," Gardenhire said of Nolasco per MLB.com. "He goes about his business pretty good. He's pretty tough out there on the mound. You can tell he doesn't like to [mess] around too awful much. He goes right at them, uses his pitches, knows how to add and subtract, all those things that you hope when you brought him over here."
The Twins enter play without Justin Morneau for the first time since 2002 after he departed for the Colorado Rockies while Paul Konerko will likely make his 16th straight Opening Day start in his final season-opener as a player.
The Twins and White Sox start their 2014 campaigns when they take the field this afternoon at U.S. Cellular Field in Chicago.
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