MINNEAPOLIS – The White Sox appear to have an emerging talent in rookie pitcher Shane Smith, whose five scoreless innings highlighted a 3-0 win over the Twins Thursday at Target Field.

Smith tossed a career-high seven strikeouts, displaying a well-rounded arsenal with three strikeouts using his four-seam fastball, two with his slider and one with his changeup and curveball. With just four hits allowed and one walk, Smith picked up his first career win after being selected with the No. 1 overall pick in December’s Rule 5 Draft from Milwaukee.

An hour-long rain delay shortened Thursday’s contest to just seven innings, making Smith’s outing even more impactful. He’s learned a lot about himself through five major-league starts.

“I think I can be as aggressive as I want to be,” Smith said. “Whether it’s soft stuff in the zone, hard in the zone. I think I can command it well enough that I’m not going to get hurt a lot of the time. I know I’m probably going to get hurt after saying that, but I just have a lot of confidence in what I’m doing.”

The White Sox provided Smith run support early on. Lenyn Sosa, off to a solid start with a .265 batting average, was ready for his first at-bat against Twins starter Chris Paddack in the second. He scorched a first-pitch, hanging slider over the middle 416 feet for a solo home run to give the White Sox a 1-0 lead.

Paddack retired eight of the next nine batters to reach two outs in the fourth inning, but he struggled to close it out. He walked three of the next four batters, the outlier being a Michael A. Taylor infield single. The third walk of the inning to Palacios brought home a run and extended the White Sox advantage to 2-0.

Meanwhile, Smith continued to produce some of the most positive outcomes of the White Sox 2025 season. He entered his fifth MLB start ranked third in opponents’ slugging (.231), fourth in batting average (.167), fourth in OPS (.509) and 12th in ERA (2.82) among American League pitchers with at least 22 innings.

Smith was a bright spot again, this time on a rainy Thursday in Minneapolis. After allowing a leadoff single, he picked off Edouard Julien at first thanks to an overturned challenge. After getting Byron Buxton to chase an outside slider, he ended the first inning with a sharp curveball in the dirt to strike out the hot-hitting Trevor Larnach, who homered in each of the last two games.

A variety of Smith’s pitches were working against the Twins. In the second inning, he froze Ty France on a changeup at the bottom of the zone for his third strikeout. After allowing a leadoff double to Christian Vázquez in the third, Smith caught Buxton looking at a fastball on the outside corner, and got out of the inning with a pair of fly outs. Larnach whiffed at an outside changeup in the fourth, and Smith blew a 95 mph fastball past France two at-bats later.

“I felt like I was throwing the changeup a decent amount,” Smith said. “Got a strikeout with the curveball in the first inning. I think that was good to kind of – I feel like I haven’t thrown that a ton this year, so to pull that out in the first was good. And I think the heater was effective today. The velo was whatever, but I think it was effective location a lot of the time.”

The 25-year-old Smith has run into trouble toward the end of his last two starts, allowing a three-run home run to Rafael Devers in the fifth inning after four shutout innings to begin his April 19 outing against the Red Sox. There was a similar trend in his April 13 start versus Boston, tossing five scoreless frames before allowing a two-RBI double to Trevor Story.

How Smith fares in the late stages of his starts will be an aspect of his development to monitor throughout his rookie season. He allowed a leadoff single to Brooks Lee in the fifth, then induced soft contact by DaShawn Keirsey Jr. and Vázquez. After a mound visit, Smith used back-to-back elevated fastballs to strike out Julien and end the inning.

After 82 pitches and five innings, Venable decided it was time to turn the game over to the bullpen. Smith finished with four hits and zero runs allowed, along with one walk and a season-high seven strikeouts.

“He’s a guy that’s still continuing to grow. To ask too much of him early is something we have to be mindful of too,” Venable said. “He’s a really good pitcher that we want out there but we just have to be thoughtful about how we use all our pitchers.”

The White Sox gave Smith more run support in the sixth, thanks to Miguel Vargas’ first home run of the season. The third baseman crushed a 96.8 mph fastball 422 feet to left field, giving the White Sox a 3-0 lead.

“Obviously he throws it very fast. I was trying to fight with the fastball,” Vargas said. “Especially two strikes, I want to put it in play. Happy to have a good result.”

Vargas entered Thursday’s game with a .157 batting average, though he notched two hits on Wednesday. He’s been working on some swing adjustments, and lately it’s paid off.

“The guys here help me, help me out a lot,” Vargas said. “We’ve been working through where I can be more on path through the fastball and I think they’ve been helping me a lot and we’ve been working. It’s good to see good results.”

Smith was replaced by right-hander Jordan Leasure, who allowed two base runners but got some help from the umpire with a strikeout call on a fastball out of the zone. A broken-bat lineout by France ended the scoring threat.

“Big spot against the heart of their order,” Venable said. “With where we’re at in the game, just wanted to make sure we got through another inning there in a good spot and Leasure did a good job.”

The late innings took a bit longer than usual as rain continued throughout the game, requiring the Target Field grounds screw to pour dirt across the infield between innings. Brandon Eisert worked a scoreless seventh despite allowing Vázquez’s second double of the day. But the game entered a rain delay after the seventh inning and was called off after about an hour, giving Eisert his first career save.

With their second road win of the season, the White Sox improved to 6-19 and snapped their 14-game losing streak at Target Field. Next up is a three-game series in Sacramento against the Athletics beginning Friday at 9:05 p.m. CT.