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2019 Twins Game Recaps

2019 Recap: Game Ninety-three

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NEW YORK 3, MINNESOTA 2 IN MINNESOTA

Date:  Tuesday, July 16.

Batting stars:  C. J. Cron was 2-for-4 with two doubles.  Eddie Rosario was 2-for-4.  Jonathan Schoop was 1-for-2 with a home run (his fifteenth) and a walk.

Pitching stars:  Michael Pineda pitched six innings, giving up three runs (one earned) on six hits and no walks.  Zack Littell pitched a perfect inning.  Blake Parker pitched 1.2 scoreless innings, giving up a hit and two walks.

Opposition star:  Michael Conforto was 4-for-4.

The game:  The Twins gift-wrapped a pair of runs for the Mets in the first.  With men on first and second and one out, a passed ball moved them both into scoring position.  A sacrifice fly scored one, a wild pitch moved the other runner to third, and an error scored him.  It was 2-0 New York after a half inning.

The Twins wasted a one-out double by Cron in the second but got on the board in the third thanks to a Schoop home run.  They tied the game in the fifth, but missed a chance for more.  Rosario led off with a single and Cron doubled, putting men on second and third with none out.  A ground out made it 2-2 and a strikeout and an intentional walk to Schoop put men on first and third with two down.  Schoop was then caught stealing on what was assumed to be a misbegotten double steal attempt on which Cron failed to move from third.

The tie lasted all the way until the next time the Mets batted.  Amed Rosario doubled with one out in the fifth and scored on Conforto's two-out single to put New York up 3-2.  And that's where it stayed.  The Twins had men on first and second with none out in the fifth and loaded the bases with two out in the ninth, but could not bring home the tying run.

WP:  Luis Avilan (2-0).  LP:  Pineda (6-5).  S:  Edwin Diaz (21).

Notes:  Max Kepler was in center and Marwin Gonzalez in right with Byron Buxton moving to the IL.  Jonathan Schoop was injured in the ninth, and there has been no word on his condition at this writing.

Rosario and Cron both returned to the lineup from the IL and did well.  Buxton was put on the IL and Mike Morin was DFA's to make room.  Morin had actually pitched quite well for the Twins, although his last outing hurts his numbers significantly.  One assumes someone will pick him up.

Jorge Polanco was 0-for-4 and is batting .307.  Over his last thirty games, he has batted .255/.302/.372.  Over his last fifteen games, it's .229/.280/.343.

Littell has now gone nine appearances (ten innings) without giving up a run.

At this point, it becomes reasonable to ask:  which is the real Twins team?  Is it the team that roared out to a 47-22 record through June 15?  Or is the team that has stumbled and bumbled its way to a sub-.500 record since then?  The defense has become increasingly unreliable--it seems we have an error or two almost every game, plus last night we threw a passed ball and two wild pitches into the mix.  The offense has been inconsistent.  The pitching hasn't been terrible, but it hasn't been good enough to overcome the other problems.  We keep waiting for the Twins to break out and start playing well again, and maybe they will.  But it's been over a month now, and we're still waiting.  We have to consider the possibility that the Twins team we're seeing now is the Twins team we're going to see for the rest of the season.

Record:  The Twins are 58-35, first in the American League Central, five games ahead of Cleveland.

Projected record:  We'll just have to settle for 127-35!

2019 Twins Game Recaps

2019 Recap: Game Ninety-two

CLEVELAND 4, MINNESOTA 3 IN CLEVELAND

Date:  Sunday, July 14.

Batting star:  Marwin Gonzalez was 3-for-4 with a double.

Pitching stars:  Zack Littell pitched a perfect inning.  Tyler Duffey pitched a perfect inning and struck out one.

Opposition stars:  Tyler Naquin was 2-for-3 with a double.  Carlos Santana was 1-for-2 with a home run (his twenty-first), two walks, and two runs.  Shane Bieber struck out nine in 6.1 innings, giving up three runs on five hits and one walk.

The game:  Jose Berrios retired the first two Indians in the bottom of the first, but walks to Santana and Bobby Bradley were followed by a Jose Ramirez double, putting Cleveland ahead 1-0.  In the fourth, Jake Bowers led off with a double and scored on a Greg Allen single.  Allen went to second on a ground out and scored on Naquin's single, putting the Indians up 3-0.

It stayed 3-0 until the seventh.  Luis Arraez led off with a walk and Mitch Garver was hit by a pitch.  Singles by Gonzalez and Miguel Sano made the score 3-1 with the bases loaded.  Jake Cave was hit by a pitch to cut the lead to 3-2.  With one out, Max Kepler singled to tie it 3-3.  The bases were still loaded with one out, but a pair of strikeouts ended the inning.

It didn't stay tied long.  With two out in the bottom of the seventh, Santana homered to put Cleveland back in front at 4-3.  And that's where it stayed.  Arraez had a leadoff double in the eighth and an error started the ninth, but the Twins could not score again.

WP:  Adam Cimber (5-2).  LP:  Trevor May (3-2).  S:  Brad Hand (24).

Notes:  Arraez was at third base and Sano at first with C. J. Cron out.  Gonzalez was in left with Eddie Rosario out.  Kepler was in center and Cave in right with Byron Buxton out.

Arraez was 1-for-3 with a walk and is batting .385.  Jorge Polanco was 0-for-5 and is batting .311.

Arraez now has ninety-six major league at-bats.  I wonder what the record is for highest batting average in your first one hundred at-bats.

Littell has not allowed a run since the debacle in Tampa Bay on May 30, in which he gave up eight runs in 4.1 innings.  Those eight runs are the only runs he's given up in the major leagues this season.  His season ERA doesn't look very good because of that, but in fact he has gone eight consecutive appearances (nine innings) with out giving up a run and is unscored upon in nine of his ten appearances this season.

This felt like a winnable game that the Twins let slip away.  In fact, it seems like a lot of the Twins losses have been winnable games that the let slip away.  You never like to lose a game you could've won, but there's an upside to it.  There have not been that many games where the Twins got blown out this year.  Most of their losses have been games that they could've won with a few breaks or with a key hit at the right time.  It seems to me that this, too, is the sign of a good team--that the games you lost are games you could have won.

We'd love to have had the sweep, but as many pointed out, taking two out of three from the Indians in Cleveland is still pretty good.  Some of us were worried that the margin might be down to 2.5 after this series--instead it's 6.5.  We'll take it.

Record:  The Twins are 58-34, first in the American League Central, 6.5 games ahead of Cleveland.

Projected record:  We'll just have to settle for 128-34!