CHICAGO -- Ross and Lyn Thorpe, the parents of Twins left-hander Lewis Thorpe, needed a 14 1/2-hour flight from Melbourne, Australia, a 4 1/2-hour layover in Los Angeles and another four hours from Los Angeles to show up at Guaranteed Rate Field on Saturday to surprise their son.

They didn’t get into Chicago until 6 p.m. CT on Saturday, and without wifi on their flight, they had no idea if they had missed their son’s Major League debut in the Twins’ 3:12 p.m. game -- or if their trip was even still a surprise.

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“Got here to find out that the kid was surprised, and that he was starting [Sunday],” Lyn Thorpe said. “We know the baseball gods have aligned everything for us to be here.”

Their son made it all worth it.

With his parents and agent sitting behind home plate, Thorpe pitched five strong innings in the Twins’ 4-3 loss on Sunday, allowing a pair of runs -- via a two-run homer by Yoan Moncada -- on only five hits and two walks before he was forced out of the game by a two-hour, 54-minute rain delay.

"It panned out perfectly,” Thorpe said. “Them flying out and surprising me was awesome, and them getting to see my first start in The Show was just a dream come true. The script came together. It was great."

The 23-year-old Thorpe had trouble shaking all of the adrenaline early in the game, but said he started to calm down a bit when leadoff hitter Leury Garcia swung at his first pitch and lofted it to right field.

"I'd felt nothing like that, ever, before,” Thorpe said. “Everyone was telling me, 'You're going to feel so much adrenaline. You're going to feel a lot of things out there.' I certainly did."

Once that was out of the way, Thorpe was aggressive in the strike zone early, throwing 11 of his 12 first-inning pitches for strikes, as he whiffed Moncada on a curveball for his first career punchout. He also got newly minted All-Star catcher James McCann swinging two at-bats later.

Thorpe added two more strikeouts in the second, and by the time the rain started falling in Chicago before the sixth, Thorpe had punched out seven, falling one shy of the Twins' record in a debut, which belongs to Boof Bonser, who had eight in his first outing on May 21, 2006. Left-hander Devin Smeltzer also had seven strikeouts in his debut earlier this season.

“They told me, 'Just throw it over the plate, and everything will pan out,'” Thorpe said. “I did that. I had two walks, but that's all right, you know? I was a little shaky, but 0-2 is what they taught me. Get there and just throw the ball over the plate and you'll get swings and misses. I did that."

The thunderstorm likely stopped Thorpe from attaining the record, as he had only thrown 70 pitches before his outing was cut short, and he’d registered at least one strikeout in each of his five innings on the mound.

Though Thorpe was optioned back to Triple-A after the game, he wasn’t at all disappointed, as he had fully expected to make only one appearance with the Twins due to the circumstances. As far as he was concerned, he’d made it count -- and he had his loved ones with him for his once-in-a-lifetime moment.

“I know I've got the stuff to do it,” Thorpe said. “I know my Triple-A numbers aren't that good, but I went out there and threw strikes, and now I'm going to take that confidence back down to Triple-A and hopefully do what I did today down there."

Though it cut Thorpe’s outing short, the delay was also a blessing for the Twins, as it also forced White Sox starter Lucas Giolito out of the game after he had allowed only one hit through five frames, and allowed the Minnesota bats to get to work against the White Sox bullpen.

The Twins’ bats came out firing with a sixth-inning double from Byron Buxton, but they did all of their damage in the seventh, with a two-run homer from Nelson Cruz, his third of the series, and a pinch-hit RBI single by Miguel Sano that pulled them within one run. But Jonathan Schoop and Buxton both struck out to end the threat, and Minnesota went quietly in the eighth before stranding the tying run at second in the ninth.

“Late in the game, I think we did have good at-bats,” Twins manager Rocco Baldelli said. “I think we put ourselves in position to maybe tie or win that game. We hit balls on the barrel, just couldn't find a hole or get it done. But it wasn't because of our guys going up there and giving up at-bats. Our guys did their jobs and did a nice job.”