The #MNTwins sent RHP Cody Stashak to the mound to start today’s game in Kansas City against the Kansas City Royals so that meant it was going to be a bullpen game for the Minnesota Twins. The Royals countered with RHP Glenn Sparkman.
The scoring got underway in the bottom of the 1st when OF Jorge Soler took the American League lead in Home Runs with his 46th of the season. The Twins would tie the game at 1 when 1B Willians The Turtle Astudillo hit his 9th double of the season to score C Mitch Garver, who got on with his 15th double of the season.
Stashak got through the 2nd perfectly with one strikeout and RHP Kyle Gibson, still trying to find a way to help his team, pitched the 3rd inning. He needed 32 pitches to get through it but he didn’t allow a run but he allowed a single and two walks, loading the bases with 2 outs before getting a strikeout to end the inning. It’s hard to know if Gibby will be able to help the Twins in the postseason so it will be interesting to see what they do. We’ll predict a Game 1 roster next week.
Zack Littell pitched a perfect 4th with 2 strikeouts. It was a Littell Inning! Littell by Littell.
In the top of the 5th, OF Ian Miller led off with his 1st MLB Double and 1st MLB Extra Base hit then Luis Arraez grounded out to 1st to advance Miller to 3rd and Jorge Polanco hit a sacrifice fly to center field to put the Twins up 2-1.
LHP Lewis Thorpe pitched the 5th and allowed a 1-out single and a stolen base but also struck one and got out of the inning in with the 1-run lead still intact.
Mitch Garver hit a 1-out double (16) for his 2nd double of the day and he was once again knocked in by Willians Astudillo, this time with a single, though. 3-1 Twins.
RHP Trevor May pitched the 6th, allowing a leadoff single but got a flyout and two strikeouts looking to get the Twins through 6 innings.
RHP Tyler Duffey got the 7th with a 23.2 innings scoreless streak on the line. He struck out the 1st two batters swinging then allowed a single and, unfortunately, he hung a slider on the first pitch to Jorge Soler and gone went the ball, the lead and the scoreless-innings streak, which ended at 24.1 innings but, hey, he’s now at .1 scoreless innings. I kid! I kid! Duff’s been on a great roll out of the ‘pen. He’ll be fine.
Duffey’s teammate, Nelson Cruz, doesn’t like losing and he really likes hitting Bombas so he did something about the game being tied up in the bottom of the 6th. He took a 3-2 pitch from RHP Jacob Burnes and gave it to a fan in left field and the game was no longer tied. 4-3 Twins.
RHP Sergio Romo pitched a perfect 8th with a strikeout and some emotion and LHP Taylor Rogers was called in from the ‘pen to pitch the 9th inning. He was looking for his 30th save of the season.
He struck out the first batter, ended up walking the next batter, then got a Nick Dini to ground into a game-ending 4-3 double play, Jonathan Schoop fielded the ball, stepped on 2nd and threw to 1st for 30 Saves for Taylor Rogers and win #101 for the Minnesota Twins!
In the minors, Taylor Rogers had 1 hold & 1 blown save over his 5-year, 99 game minor-league career and before this season, he had 57 holds and 2 saves in 4 opportunities. In 2019, he has 10 holds and now 30 saves in 36 opportunities. That’s quite a transformation into a lethal left-handed pitcher out of the Minnesota Twins Bullpen!
The Twins may have suffered another big injury in the bottom of the 7th when Hunter Dozier popped up for the final out. Duffey pointed to it and both Willians Astudillo & Luis Arraez were calling for it. Astudillo caught hit but they collided and Astudillo ended up stepping on Arraez’ right foot which made his right leg straighten out and maybe hyperextend and he went down and grabbed the back of his leg. That made most fans really worried about the knee or maybe even ligaments. He was carted off the field so he either felt he couldn’t put weight on the leg or just didn’t want to chance it.
It was reported later that x-rays were negative and he suffered an ankle sprain. We’ll for sure hear more about it later. We’ll put the video of the incident and of Rocco talking about it in the comments section.
#LaTortuga felt terrible about it but, at the end of the game, CJ Cron went up to him and put his arm around him to let him know it’s okay & it’s just something that happened. There was nothing he could do about it.
We need you, too, ‘Tuga!!! ‘TUGA! ‘TUGA!! ‘TUGA!!!
The Twins will go for a franchise-record-tying 102 wins tomorrow afternoon. They have LHP Martin Perez scheduled to start the regular-season finale against Kansas City LHP Jorge Lopez at 2:15pm on Fox Sports North.
Also, it’s settled. The Twins will face the New York Yankees in the first round of the MLB Playoffs starting with Game 1 on Friday, time TBD.
Next week’s schedule is said to be…Day off Monday, Workout at Target Field on Wednesday, Fly to New York on Wednesday, Workout at Yankee Stadium on Thursday and Game 1 Friday!
Are you ready for another series against the Twins playoff nemesis Yankees? Will this year be different? Is this team different? It feels like they are so it should be interesting.
