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2019 Twins Game Recaps

2019 Rewind: Game Eighty-six

OAKLAND 7, MINNESOTA 2 IN OAKLAND

Date:  Thursday, July 4.

Batting stars:  Nelson Cruz was 3-for-5 with a double.  Ehire Adrianza was 2-for-3.  Jonathan Schoop was 2-for-4.

Pitching stars:  Zack Littell pitched a scoreless inning, giving up two hits and striking out one.  Trevor May struck out three in a scoreless inning, giving up one hit.

Opposition stars:  Chris Herrmann was 4-for-4.  Robbie Grossman was 3-for-4.  Marcus Semien was 2-for-4 with two home runs (his twelfth and thirteenth) and five RBIs.  Tanner Anderson pitched 4.2 innings, giving up two runs (one earned) on nine hits and two walks and striking out three.  Wei-Chung Wang pitched 2.1 scoreless innings, giving up no hits and a walk and striking out one.

The game:  A two-out rally in the first produced one run for the Twins.  Cruz and Luis Arraez singled and Miguel Sano walked to fill the bases and Adrianza reached on catcher's interference.  They missed a chance for more, though, when Schoop flied out.  They missed another chance in the third, when Cruz led off the inning with a single but was caught stealing.  The Twins got two more singles in the inning, but they went for naught.

The Athletics similarly missed a chance in the third, when they had men on first and third with one out, but they tied it in the fourth on singles by Khris Davis, Grossman, and Herrmann.  The Twins took the lead back in the fifth when Cruz doubled and Adrianza singled him home, but Oakland went in front to stay in the bottom of the fifth.  Semien homered to start the inning.  Matt Chapman walked, Matt Olson singled, and Davis walked.  A double play brought home the go-ahead (or go-behind, depending on your point of view) run.

It remained 3-2 until the eighth, when Oakland broke it open.  Grossman and Herrmann singled and Jurickson Profar was hit by a pitch, loading the bases.  Semien unloaded them with a grand slam, and the game was gone.  The Twins, who had not mounted a threat since the fifth, got a leadoff double in the ninth from Max Kepler, but he did not move past second.

WP:  Wang (1-0).  LP:  Jose Berrios (8-5).  S:  None.

Notes:  Arraez remained in left field.  Adrianza was at first base in place of C. J. Cron.

Arraez was 1-for-5 and is batting .414.  Polanco was 0-for-5 and is batting .313.

I don't know why Rocco has suddenly decided Littell is a one-inning guy.  The whole point of putting him on the roster was to have a guy who could pitch multiple innings.  His last four games, though, he's gone one inning in each, and the game before that he went two.  To his credit, he's done well in that role.  In fact, if you throw out the awful game in Tampa Bay, he has an ERA of zero and has given up six hits and three walks in eight innings.  That's pretty good.  But he's supposed to be The Bullpen Guy Who Can Fill Up Some Innings, and Rocco's not giving him the chance to do that.

This was kind of an embarrassing loss for the Twins.  Tanner Anderson is a career nothing whose major league ERA was 6.83 going in and who wasn't any good in AAA this year either.  Yet, the Twins could manage only two runs off him in 4.2 innings, and if not for catcher's interference it would've been one.  Yes, they had nine hits, but only one of them was for an extra base.  The Twins could also do nothing with Lou Trivino (ERA 4.62) and Joakim Soria (4.76).  Plus, the Twins had their best pitcher going.  This is a game they should've won easily, and instead they lost by five runs.  Yes, this is baseball and it happens, but it's been happening a lot to the Twins lately, and it's not good.

But, there's nothing to be done about now, so we head home to take on the Texas Rangers.  Maybe Martin Perez will have a good game and the Twins can put together a few wins heading into the all-star break.

Record:  The Twins are 54-32, in first place in the American League Central, six games ahead of Cleveland.

Projected record:  We'll just have to settle for 130-32!

2019 Twins Game Logs

2019 Game 83: Downtowners vs. South Siders

59 Comments

Starting Lineups

G'day, wankers! This weekend the Twins wrapped up the first half of their season and got started on the second half, and so far it's been a fair dinkum year. It does seem odd to see the Twins so dominating when the team spent so many years without getting within a cooee of the postseason, but crikey, I could sure get used to it.

Due to a pair of marathon extra-inning games this past week that pressed today's presumed starter, Kyle Gibson, into an inning of relief work and wore down the entire bullpen, the Twins reached down to Rochester and pulled up Lewis Thorpe. A native of Melbourne, Australia, Thorpe will become the eighth Bruce to play for the Twins in the team's history. Thorpe was expected to just shore up the bullpen, but those plans changed with the heavy pitching workload of the last week. Thorpe got a nice surprise following yesterday's game. His parents decided to take a chance that he'd pitch at some point this weekend, so they went walkabout, hit the frog and toad and headed for Chicago to see their ankle biter in his major league debut. In 14 starts for the Red Wings this year, Thorpe is 3-4 with a 5.71 ERA and a 1.37 WHIP. The Pale Hosers send Lucas Giolito to the bump today with the series win on the line. Giolito is having an excellent year with a very mediocre team. He's compiled a 10-2 record with a 2.87 ERA and 111 strikeouts. But he's struggled in his last two starts, allowing nine runs over the course of those outings. So grab yourself a coldie from the Esky, help yourself to a sanger, and flick on the telly, mates. Play ball!

2019 Twins Game Logs

Game 82: twins @ white sox

71 Comments

Happy Buxton day!

That's right, our long nightmare is over. Byron Buxton has returned. It's hard to overstate how much better having our favorite fleetfooted fielder back helps matters, but let me try...

With Buxton, we are basically assured of winning the World Series. Without him, we'd be hard pressed to stay out of the cellar.

Marwin is back, too, and I've got to say, he was missed quite a bit, too. Having a guy who can play six positions while providing a bit of power and fair contact skills adds a lot of value. GGettingboth of these guys back on the same day makes this team a LOT better, instantly.

As Philo noted, Berrios did his job of giving the bullpen a break yesterday, now it's time to capitalize with a nice winning streak heading into the all star game.

2019 Twins Game Logs

Game 81: The Twins Close Out The First Half At Chicago White Sox

42 Comments

52-28. That's where the Twins are today. And they're either going to be 52-29 or 53-28 after the first half of games. I'm struggling to find their best first half ever, but this has to be somewhere towards the top, right? Anyway, good for them. And for us.

After a loooong loss yesterday, I think there's some concern about how the Twins will bounce back. A weekend trip to Chicago hopefully serves as the refresher. Berrios on the mound should help. It'll be hot this weekend, and hopefully the bats take a hint from the weather.

Anyway, it's my youngest's birthday today, so I'd better go finish up her cake (inspired by one of Jeff A's cake pictures here on the site - the rainbow one). Let's hope the Twins can deliver a birthday present for her!

2019 Twins Game Logs

Game 79 – Tampa Bay at Minnesota

212 Comments

Weather permitting, today we’re looking forward to seeing Ryne Stanek (opener) v. Martín Pérez.

Stanek has started 22 of the 37 games he’s appeared in this season, with a total of 43.2 innings pitched.

Pérez, in his last 7 starts, is 2-2 with a 5.80 ERA, averaging ~5 innings per start with a WHIP of 1.65. His last start was Friday the 21st where he secured a ‘no decision’ in 5 innings of work, allowing Kansas City 4 earned runs on 5 hits and 3 BBs with only 2 strikeouts. To be fair, the offense only gave him 3 runs of support before tacking on 5 more during the 7th & 8th enroute to a come-from-behind win, 8-7 over the Royals.

Last night, Rosario sprained an ankle (no IL ... yet) and La Tortuga was placed on the IL with a left oblique strain (recalled OF LaMonte Wade Jr.) They did inserted Kepler as a late defensive replacement, but Buxton, Gonzalez & Adrianza are still on the IL. Their replacements have not embarrassed themselves, and the division lead being what it is, it’s nice to see them taking the recuperation time they need.

Photo by Hannah Foslien/Getty Images

2019 Twins Game Logs

2019 Game 79: Tampa Bay Rays vs Minnesota Twins

100 Comments

Charlie Morton
vs
Jake Odorizzi

Former league ERA leader faces current league ERA leader. Odorizzi had two bad starts against against the Royals but he's done with them until at least August. His last start against the Rays went well, his last scoreless start. Magill tried to blow it after but didn't fully succeed.

Morton meanwhile was the starter in the blowout loss to the Rays. The Twins have gone 14-9 since then, an only 90-win pace.

2019 Twins Game Recaps

2019 Recap: Game Seventy-eight

5 Comments

MINNESOTA 9, TAMPA BAY 4 IN MINNESOTA

Date:  Tuesday, June 25.

Batting stars:  Eddie Rosario was 4-for-5 with a double and two RBIs.  Willians Astudillo was 3-for-4 with a double.  Mitch Garver was 3-for-5 with a home run (his twelfth), two runs, and three RBIs.  Jonathan Schoop was 1-for-3 with a home run (his thirteenth) and a walk.

Pitching stars:  Kyle Gibson struck out seven in seven innings, giving up four runs on seven hits and a walk.  Ryne Harper pitched a perfect inning and struck out one.  Tyler Duffey pitched a perfect inning.

Opposition star:  Willy Adames was 2-for-2 with a home run, his eighth.

The game:  Nobody got on base until Rosario led off the bottom of the second with a double.  With two out, Astudillo delivered an RBI single to put the Twins up 1-0.  In the second, Schoop led off with a home run.  Jorge Polanco and Garver followed with singles, and with one out Rosario and C. J. Cron came through with RBI singles, making it 4-0.  The Twins poured on some more in the fourth.  Astudillo led off with a double and Miguel Sano singled.  With one out, Schoop walked to load the bases, Garver hit a two-run single, Nelson Cruz singled to re-load the bases, and Rosario singled home another run to give the Twins a 7-0 lead.  They got one more in the fifth on a hit batsman, a single, a walk, and a sacrifice fly.  It was 8-0 through five.

The Rays got on the board in the sixth when Adames led off with a home run.  They somewhat got back into the game in the seventh.  With two out, Travis D'Arnaud singled, Joey Wendle doubled, Michael Brosseau doubled home two, and Brandon Lowe hit an RBI triple, cutting the margin to 8-4.  That was as close as they would get, however, as Tampa Bay went down in order in the eighth and ninth.  The Twins added a run in the eighth on Garver's home run.

WP:  Gibson (8-4).  LP:  Blake Snell (4-7).  S:  None.

Notes:  Polanco was 1-for-3 with a walk and is batting .326.  Garver is batting .305.  Harper has an ERA of 2.27.  Duffey has an ERA of 1.90.

Astudillo was in right field, with Kepler in center and Jake Cave on the bench.  Cave came in to play center field in the fifth after Kepler was hit in the elbow by a pitch.*  X-Rays were negative, but he will have an MRI today.  Presumably even if we get good news he will miss a couple of days.  Byron Buxton is eligible to come off the Injured List, but has not yet done so.  I'm glad they're being careful with him, but his wrist injury was apparently worse than we were initially led to believe.  If Buxton doesn't come back that pretty much leaves the Twins with three outfielders, and that's counting Astudillo as an outfielder.  It would not be surprising to see the Twins bring up an outfielder from Rochester.

*Please, Kepler did not get "beaned in the elbow".  A bean ball has a specific meaning.  It means to throw at someone's head, the "bean".  Saying he got "beaned in the elbow" is saying he got hit in the head in the elbow.  It makes no sense.  Now get off my lawn!

I don't know where this Twins team was for the last week and a half, but it was good to get them back.  Stringing hits together, getting a couple of long balls, getting good starting pitching for six innings, even getting good relief pitching.  One game doesn't mean much, of course, but we can hope this Twins team sticks around for a while.

Record:  The Twins are 51-27, in first place in the American League Central, 8.5 games ahead of Cleveland.

Projected record:  We're still on track for 135-27!