The #MNTwins were looking to sweep the Miami Marlins this afternoon so they could stay on a nice little roll as they head home for 10 straight against the Kansas City Royals (3-game series), the Atlanta Braves (3-game series) and the Cleveland Indians (4-game series.)
They had RHP Michael Pineda on the mound and he’s been pitching very well for a couple of months now. He’d face RHP Jordan Yamamoto.
Max Kepler put the Minnesota Twins on the board with his 30th HR of the season to lead off the game in the top of the 1st. THIRTY HOME RUNS!!! #MaxPower
The Marlins tied it up in the bottom of the 2nd with an RBI-Triple from Harold Ramirez.
The Twins responded in the top of the 4th when Miguel Sano hit a 1-out double (13) to left field. Jason Castro struck out then Ehire Adrianza was hit by a pitch and that brought up Byron Buxton. He hit an 0-2 curveball off the left field line for a double (30) that scored both Sano & Adrianza and gave the Twins a 3-1 lead. In the top of the 5th, Luis Arraez & Jorge Polanco hit back-to-back singles with Arraez advancing to 3rd on Polanco’s single. Eddie Rosario then hit a sacrifice fly to put the Twins up 4-1.
Michael Pineda had another good start, going 6 innings and allowing 7 hits and 1 walk while striking out 3 and allowing just the 1 run. RHP Tyler Duffey pitched the 7th allowing 2 walks but striking out the side. RHP Sergio Romo then pitched a perfect 8th and Rocco decided to bring in newly acquired RHP Sam Dyson to close out the game. He had arrived at the game around the 3rd inning or so after taking a flight the night before but LHP Taylor Rogers had pitched the previous 2 games so Rocco brought in Dyson, who hadn’t pitched in a couple games so he was likely fresh.
In his Twins Debut, RHP Sam Dyson walked the first batter (Granderson) on 6 pitches then allowed a single (Prado) followed by an RBI-double (Berti) and then walked (Anderson) the bases loaded and Rogers was summoned from the bullpen. Rogers got down 3-0 then got a strike and followed it up with a fastball in the same area, or that’s where it ended up, and Neil Walker hit a 2-run single to tie the game. Mr. Rogers then struck out Castro, intentionally walked Ramirez to load the bases again then he struck out both Jorge Alfaro and Bryan Holaday to send the game into extra innings.
Neither the Twins nor the Marlins got a hit in extra innings until the bottom of the 12th when Harold Ramirez hit a Cody Stashak 90mph fastball out to end the game and Walk Off the Twins for the 1st time this season.
An unfortunate ending to a pretty good 5-2 road trip.
After the game, Sam Dyson said:
“Didn’t execute, didn’t get the job done,” said Dyson, who entered the outing with 1.2 walks per nine innings. “We had the lead. I didn’t do my job as part of the team. That’s a bad first impression. Hopefully, there’s no more of those.
“I haven’t walked too many guys this year. … You’re never trying to go up there and walk a guy. I’m not trying to walk anybody, that’s for sure. I wasn’t initially trying to do that, I wasn’t trying to work around them. I didn’t have it, and that was about it.”
“Coming from our point of view, the way the game played out, I think it made sense to get him in,” Baldelli said. “It’s a high-leverage, fairly high-leverage situation. It’s a three-run game in the ninth inning. You can question yourself on our end decision-making-wise on what ifs and things like that, but he’s going to pitch in big spots like that for the rest of the year, so I thought it fit well.
“We had Romo up in the seventh, and therefore made it pretty easy to make the decision to bring him in in the eighth because he was already up and hot. So he went out there and did a nice job. We were going to try to stay away from ‘Rog’ if possible, if we could today, so I thought it made sense to get Dyson up. He was ready to go. He’s been off for a few days, and get him in there and he’s, like I said, he’s going to be a guy that we lean on and days like today, they’re going to happen.”
You have to hand it to Taylor Rogers for giving his team a chance to win by striking out 3 of the next 4 hitters and sending the game into extra innings.
According to FanGraphs, the Marlins had a 93.3 percent win expectancy after Walker’s knock.
They get to take their anger out on the Royals right away tomorrow night at 7:10pm when LHP Martin Perez (8-4, 4.38 ERA) takes the mound for the Twins against RHP Glenn Sparkman (3-7, 5.25 ERA)
