The White Sox turned to fireballing right-hander David Sandlin to start — and to make his major-league debut — Wednesday against the American League Central rival Twins.
The script couldn’t have gone better, save for one early blip in the Sox’ 15-2 victory.
The 6-4, 220-pound Sandlin yielded a 417-foot home run to Twins leadoff man Byron Buxton on his second pitch, a low but center-cut 97.2 mph four-seam fastball that quickly cleared the fence in left-center field. Buxton raced around the bases after his 17th homer produced a quick 1-0 lead for the Twins.
‘‘I feel like that kind of took the weight off, almost,’’ Sandlin said. ‘‘I was like, ‘Man, it can’t get worse than that,’ you know? Like, ‘Let’s go now. Welcome to it,’ I guess.’’
What a welcome it was for Sandlin, 25, who settled in sensationally to stymie any more celebrations. He retired the next 18 hitters in a row, the most by any Sox pitcher in his big-league debut in the last 100 years, according to Elias.
Sandlin exited after six innings, having thrown only 61 pitches, 41 of them for strikes. He said couldn’t remember dealing the kind of run he dished out against the Twins.
‘‘I feel like when I pitch best, my mind kind of goes blank and [it’s] just muscle memory out there,’’ Sandlin said.
He allowed only the one hit, struck out four and walked none before manager Will Venable called on reliever Brandon Eisert to start the seventh.
‘‘Of course, I tried to get one more [inning],’’ Sandlin said. ‘‘But I knew, like, it was it after [Venable] talked to me. But after that, it was just a surreal feeling.’’
Meanwhile, the Sox backed Sandlin with an 18-hit attack and their highest run output in three years to give him his first victory.
Chase Meidroth hit his first career grand slam in the seventh. Munetaka Murakami followed with an opposite-field shot to left to join Jim Thome and Frank Thomas as the only Sox players to reach 20 homers before June.
Murakami has gone deep in three consecutive games is tied for the American League lead in homers with the Astros’ Yordan Alvarez. He also stole his first base in the majors, taking second standing up in the sixth.
Randal Grichuk added three hits and two RBI, and Sam Antonacci had his first three-hit game in the majors.
The rout started when Antonacci singled off Twins starter Connor Prielipp’s glove on a crazy, up-the-middle bouncer to drive in two runs in the second. Colson Montgomery lined an RBI double to the wall in left-center in the third, plating Miguel Vargas.
The Sox added five more runs in the fifth to boost their lead to 8-1. Grichuk drove in the first run of the inning with an RBI single, and Edgar Quero followed with a sacrifice fly. Two more runs scored on a single by Luisangel Acuna and a bad relay throw. Grichuk drove in another run in the sixth to make it 9-1.
Sandlin, who was called up from Triple-A Charlotte on Tuesday, kept to his promise of using his heater and ‘‘getting after people with it,’’ reaching a velocity up to 99.3 mph.
Against the Twins, Sandlin mixed other pitches into his repertoire, including a cutter, sweeper, curve and changeup across a variety of speeds.
‘‘Just incredible,’’ Venable said. ‘‘He was effective in the zone with all his pitches. There was some swing-and-miss there, gave up a lot of fly balls. Some really good plays defensively throughout the game, but he was just attacking the zone in every way he wanted to.
‘‘He really pitched with an edge. There’s definitely a fiery side that you saw there, and I think it came out really early where he gives up a homer and gets right back into the zone [and] attacking it.’’
Sandlin jumped into the Sox’ rotation after rookie left-hander Noah Schultz went on the 15-day injured list with patellar tendinitis in his right knee. Emerging ace Davis Martin’s start was moved back to the series finale Thursday afternoon.