MINNESOTA TWINS 2, TEXAS RANGERS 1 IN MINNESOTA
Date: Friday, August 19, 2022.
Batting stars: Luis Arraez hit a home run, his seventh. Jose Miranda hit a home run, his thirteenth.
Pitching stars: Dylan Bundy pitched 5.1 innings, giving up one run on two hits and one walk and striking out two. Trevor Megill pitched a scoreless inning, giving up a hit and a walk and striking out one. Jhoan Duran pitched a perfect inning, striking out one. Jorge Lopez pitched a scoreless inning, giving up two walks and striking out one.
Opposition stars: Martin Perez struck out seven in six innings, giving up two runs on five hits and three walks.
The game: With two out in the first, Luis Arraez and Jose Miranda hit back-to-back homers to give the Twins a 2-0 lead. That was all the Twins would do on offense, but it was enough. They did threaten in the second when Max Kepler hit a one-out double, in the fifth, when Byron Buxton and Arraez drew walks, and in the sixth, when Jorge Polanco hit a one-out double, but they did not dent the scoreboard again.
Texas only had one hit through the first five innings. In the sixth, Bubba Thompson singled, stole second, and scored on a two-out single by Nathaniel Lowe to cut the lead to 2-1.
That’s where it stayed. The Rangers threatened in the seventh, when Leody Taveras singled and Brad Miller walked with one out, but a ground out and a long fly ended the inning. In the ninth, Jonah Heim and Taveras drew one-out walks, but Miller lined into a double play to end the game with the good guys winning.
WP: Dylan Bundy (7-5).
LP: Martin Perez (9-4).
S: Jorge Lopez (22).
Notes: Sandy Leon was behind the plate. Gary Sanchez caught the most games with 91, with Ryan Jeffers following at 59. Luis Arraez was at first base. Jose Miranda played the most games there with 77, followed by Arraez at 65. Gilberto Celestino, usually found in center, was in left, with Byron Buxton in center. Nick Gordon played the most games in left with 62, with Jake Cave following with 45. Jose Miranda was the DH. Arraez had the most games at DH with 38, followed by Buxton with 35 and Sanchez with 33.
Luis Arraez was batting .335. He would finish with a league-leading .316.
Jorge Lopez had an ERA of 1.90. He would finish at 2,54. Jhoan Duran had an ERA of 2.01. He would finish at 1.86. Trevor Megill had an ERA of 2.90. He would finish at 4.80.
Martin Perez had pitched for the Twins in 2019.
This was the seventh game as a Twin for Jorge Lopez. It was his third save against two blown saves. He would get only one more save as a Twin, going 0-1, 4.37, 1.62 WHIP for Minnesota in 2022. His 2023 was no better. Among the players the Twins traded for him were Yennier Cano and Cade Povich. A little less than a year later, they would trade him to Miami for Dylan Floro.
This was Dylan Bundy’s only year as a Twin and his last in the big leagues. He went 8-8, 4.89 in 29 starts. He seems rather emblematic of the kind of stop-gap starter the Twins have tended to acquire in recent years.
I guess solo home runs can hurt you, after all.
Record: Texas was 53-66, in third place in the AL West, twenty-three games behind Houston. They would finish 68-94, in fourth place, thirty-eight games behind Houston.
The Twins were 62-55, in second place in the AL Central, one game behind Cleveland. They would finish 78-84, in third place, fourteen games behind Cleveland. The Twins would go 16-29 after this game, the second-worst record in the league (just ahead of Texas) in that span.
Random Record: The Random Twins are 38-42 (.475).