The #MNTwins are 26-26 since they reached a season-high American League Central lead of 11 games on June 15th. Since the All-Star Break, they are 16-15 and since the Trade Deadline, they are 7-7. Playing .500 the rest of the way is probably not going to win the division, so they need to get on a roll here in the stretch run.
They used the Bomba Squad offense to beat the Rangers 13-6 on Thursday night and they had Jake Odorizzi on the mound last night against the Texas Rangers best pitcher in LHP Mike Minor.
The game was a mini-pitcher’s duel for the first 3 innings with the Twins getting just 2 hits & a walk and the Ranger getting only 1 hit and a walk.
The top of the 4th changed that when, after Miguel Sano reached when a sky-high flyball was dropped by Rangers’ 2B Roughned Odor, Max Kepler took the very next pitch deep to right field to put the Twins up 2-0.
The Rangers responded in the bottom of the 4th with back-to-back 1-out singles to have runners on 1st & 3rd. Odo struck out Mazara but then threw a wild pitch that scored Andrus from 3rd and cut the lead in half at 2-1.
In the bottom of the 6th, Odorizzi gave up a leadoff double to Shin-Soo Choo then struck out former Twin Danny Santana and got Andrus to ground out but Choo advanced to 3rd. Rocco kept Odo in to face left-handed hitter Nomar Mazara who had already doubled in his first at-bat then struck out in his 2nd at-bat. Well, he ended up doubling again to score 2 runs and the 1-run lead turned into a 1-run deficit and that was it for Odo. He was cruising along but couldn’t finish strong and get through 6 innings. RHP Tyler Duffey came in and struck out Odor to finish the 6th.
Jake ended with a line of: 5.2IP 5H 3R/ER 2BB & 5K.
We’ve seen this team respond to being scored on a lot this season. We’d rather have a bigger lead so they don’t always need to respond but they did it again and right away in the next half inning as Marwin Gonzalez singled to left field with 1 out in the top of the 7th then Jonathan Schoop came up and homered to left field to put the Twins back in front at 4-3, his 17th HR of the season. It’s been a while since Schoop contributed much with the bat so it was nice to see.
The Twins bullpen handled the rest with RHP Sam Dyson, LHP Taylor Rogers and RHP Sergio Romo finishing the game, allowing 4 hits and 2 walks while striking out 2 but giving up ZERO runs. Rocco brought Rogers in to get the tough left-handed hitters. He gave up a couple of hits but he also struck out 2 to give Romo a save opportunity. Romo had the slider-changeup combo working and earned his 20th save of the season & his 3rd with the Twins.
The Indians lost to the Yankees so the Twins are now up 1.5 games in the Central Division. The Indians are also losing 6-5 to the Yankees in the top of the 8th in New York right now.
Will the Twins keep the streak alive with RHP Jose Berrios on the mound tonight? He’ll have to do it against RHP Ariel Jurado (6-8, 5.31 ERA, 1.45 WHIP) at 7:05pm on Fox Sports North. Tonight might be the better option to win the series as they’ll have to face former Twin RHP Lance Lynn tomorrow.
