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2019 Twins Game Recaps

2019 Recap: Game One Hundred Twenty-seven

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CHICAGO 4, MINNESOTA 0 IN MINNESOTA

Date:  Wednesday, August 21.

Batting stars:  None.

Pitching stars:  Ryne Harper pitched a scoreless inning, giving up a hit and a walk and striking out one.  Sam Dyson pitched a perfect inning and struck out one.  Tyler Duffey struck out two in a perfect inning.  Trevor May pitched a scoreless inning, giving up a hit and striking out one.

Opposition stars:  Lucas Giolito struck out twelve in a complete game shutout, giving up three hits and no walks.  Jose Abreu was 3-for-5 with a double and two RBIs.  Leury Garcia was 2-for-5 with two runs.  Tim Anderson was 2-for-5.

The game:  The Twins helped the White Sox get two runs in the first inning.  Garcia led off with a single, and runners were on first and second when Jorge Polanco failed to touch second on what should have been a force out.  Abreu then singled home a run, a wild pitch moved runners to second and third, and Matt Skole singled to make it 2-0.

In the third, singles by Garcia, Anderson, and Abreu made it 3-0.  In the fifth, Abreu doubled, went to third on a ground out, and scored on a wild pitch to make it 4-0.

Meanwhile, the Twins could get nothing accomplished on offense.  Polanco had a bunt single in the first, Nelson Cruz had a one-out single in the fourth, and Jonathan Schoop had a one-out double in the eighth.  That was all the offense the Twins had, with Schoop the only Twin to get as far as second base.

WP:  Giolito (14-6).  LP:  Jake Odorizzi (13-6).  S:  None.

Notes:  Max Kepler remained in center field, with Jake Cave in right, in the continued absence of Byron Buxton.  Luis Arraez was at third base, with Miguel Sano moving to first.  Eddie Rosario started in left, but was removed in the fifth inning due to a tight hamstring.  Rather than use an outfielder, the Twins moved Arraez to left, Sano to third, and put Ehire Adrianza in the game at first base.  I'm not sure why you'd rather have Sano at third than Adrianza, but I admit that I haven't looked at their defensive stats at third base.

Arraez was 0-for-3 and is batting .341.  Cruz was 1-for-4 and is batting .303.  Duffey has an ERA of 2.95.

The Twins made another error and threw three more pitches to the backstop.  I'm probably sounding like Johnny One-note mentioning this all the time, but I'd be happy to stop mentioning it if the Twins would stop doing it.  I could easily have missed it, but I don't remember Rocco or the front office publicly addressing the defensive lapses.  The only thing I've hears is the occasional comment that "No one feels worse about that than [the responsible player]", which is probably true but doesn't do anything to solve the problem.  I have no idea what may be going on privately, of course, nor is there any reason I should.  But whatever they may be doing privately doesn't seem to be helping, and publicly they don't seem very concerned.  They should be.  When you play bad teams, you can sometimes rely on your batting to overcome your defensive woes.  When you play good teams, you can't afford to give them free bases and extra outs.  The Twins had better get the defense tightened up pretty soon.

It's obviously disappointing to lose two of three to the lowly White Sox, and it's tempting to get really upset about it.  But the thing is, that's baseball.  A bad team takes a series from a good team sometimes.  Giolito is a very good pitcher, and he'll shut a team down sometimes.  Ivan Nova is not as good as Giolito, but he's good enough that he'll have an occasional really good game, too.  And the Twins did not have a lot of luck in this series--fourteen hits with only four runs in the first game, lots of soft-contact hits for the White Sox in the last game.  It happens.  Yes, the Twins made some contributions to their bad luck, but it was still a factor.  It happens, because it's baseball.  That's why there's no such thing as an upset in any particular baseball game.  As Joaquin Andujar told us, the one word that describes baseball best is youneverknow.

The good news is that Cleveland lost, too.  The Twins don't have to win any specific number of games to win the division.  They just have to win one more than the Indians.  Right now, they've won three more.  I'm not saying "All is well", but I'd still rather be three games up than three games back.

Record:  The Twins are 77-50, in first place in the American League Central, three games ahead of Cleveland.

Projected record:  We'll just have to settle for 112-50!

2019 Twins Game Recaps

2019 Recap: One Hundred Twenty-five

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CHICAGO 6, MINNESOTA 4 IN MINNESOTA

Date:  Monday, August 19.

Batting stars:  Luis Arraez was 3-for-5 with a double.  Eddie Rosario was 3-for-5.  Jake Cave was 2-for-4.  Jorge Polanco was 2-for-5 with a home run (his eighteenth), a double, three runs, and two RBIs.  Nelson Cruz was 2-for-5.  Miguel Sano was 2-for-5.

Pitching stars:  None.

Opposition stars:  Ryan Goins was 3-for-4 with two runs.  Jose Abreu was 1-for-4 with a three-run homer, his twenty-seventh.  Ivan Nova pitched 5.1 innings, giving up two runs on ten hits and one walk and striking out two.

The game:  The Twins once again scored early.  Arraez and Polanco started the first inning with back-to-back doubles and Cruz followed with a single, putting the Twins up 2-0.  They missed a chance to add to the lead in the second, putting two on with two out but failing to score.  It cost them, because in the third singles by Matt Skole, Yolmer Sanchez, and Goins and a three-run homer by Abreu put the White Sox ahead 4-2.

The Twins put two on with two out in the fourth and did not score.  They had men on second and third with one out in the sixth, but the contact play cost the Twins again, as Sano was thrown out at the plate on a grounder to third.

In the seventh, Tim Anderson doubled, went to third on a ground out, and scored on a squeeze bunt to make the score 5-2.  Polanco hit a home run in the  bottom of the seventh to cut the margin to 5-3 and give the Twins some hope.  The hope was quickly dashed, however, as Chicago got the run back in the eighth.  Goins singled, Jon Jay walked, and Eloy Jimenez singled to make the score 6-3.

The Twins did threaten in the ninth.  Singles by Arraez, Cruz, and Rosario cut the lead to 6-4 and brought the winning run to the plate with two out.  But Sano struck out, and the game was over.

WP:  Nova (9-9).  LP:  Kyle Gibson (11-6).  S:  Alex Colome (24).

Notes:  Max Kepler was held out of the game, presumably due to lingering effects of his heat-related illness Sunday.  That means the Twins went with an outfield of Rosario-Cave-Marwin Gonzalez.  That's not a good defensive outfield.  It's hard to tell whether it made any difference--no defense can stop a three-run homer--but it certainly didn't help.

Cruz returned to the lineup as the DH.

Arraez is now batting .348.

Gibson pitched 6.2 innings, giving up five runs on six hits and one walk and striking out four.

This was not the way the start of the "soft spot in the schedule" was supposed to go.  Still, it's not realistic to expect the Twins to win every game, even against bad teams, and if the Twins win the next two to take the series, that would be an acceptable outcome.  It also seems like, as much as anything, the Twins simply had some bad luck.  They out-hit the White Sox 15-8.  They had twelve singles, two doubles, and a home run.  They also drew a walk.  And they were 3-for-9 with men in scoring position, so it's not like they weren't producing in the clutch.  Yet, they managed to score only four runs.  That's not very easy to do.  It's frustrating, but it's baseball, and it happens.  I'll go out on a limb, though, and predict that if the Twins get fifteen hits again tonight they will score more than four runs.

Record:  The Twins are 76-49, in first place in the American League Central, two games ahead of Cleveland.

Projected record:  We'll just have to settle for 113-49!