The Minnesota Twins hope the 4th is with them, today, so they can extend their winning streak to 3 games against the Texas Rangers and former Twins starter RHP Kyle Gibson
Some #Twinsactions today:
The #MNTwins have placed UTIL Luis Arraez on the 7-Day IL with concussion-like symptoms & recalled INF Nick Gordon from Triple-A St. Paul!
Here are the lineups for tonight’s Game 2 (of 4) with LHP J.A. Happ pitching against former Minnesota Twins RHP Kyle Gibson!
Minnesota Twins Lineup:
Texas Rangers Lineup:
1B/OF or OF/1B Alex Kirilloff was scratched due to wrist soreness so Jake Cave started in LF & Willians #LaTortuga🐢 Astudillo started at 1B.
AND….#HappyMiLBOpeningDay, TwinsTakers!!!
The Future looks bright so…maybe you should wear 😎 !!!
It’s an exciting day for The Future Of Baseball!
Follow the #MNTwins affiliates on Twitter & Instagram:
AAA
@StPaulSaints
High-A
@CRKernels
Low-A
@MightyMussels
The Mighty Mussels got a leadoff HR to open the season off the bat of 2018 9th-round pick, OF Willy Joe Garry, Jr. & still lead 1-0 in the top of the 4th.
Keoni Cavaco also 1B’d and Yunior Severino & Edouard Julien have walked.
Minnesota Twins 2018 10th-round pick RHP Regi Grace made the start & he’s through 3 innings. He’s allowed 2 hits & 1 walk and struck out 2!
The Saints, Wind Surge & Kernels games began at 6:35pm.
The #Saints had LHP Andrew Albers starting
#WindSurge’s starter was still TBD
&
the #Kernels had LHP Kody Funderburke starting
Follow along at the Minor League Baseball site HERE!
We’ll do our best to post about the Minor League results on a nightly basis.
Recap
Rangers shortstop Isiah Kiner-Falefa was hit by a pitch on the top of his left (lead) foot to start the game. He advanced to 2nd on a groundout then scored on an Adolis Garcia RBI-singled to put the Rangers up 1-0 in the 1st inning. Rangers 1-0
In the bottom of the 1st, Max Kepler grounded out to 3rd but Josh Donaldson walked and Byron Buxton hit his 9th Home Run of the season to change a 1-run deficit to a 1-run lead and it was smoked like most of Byron’s HRs have been this season. It had an exit velocity of 106mph and traveled 433 feet on a launch angle of 24º as Byron tries to stay hot in the month of May. Twins 2-1
Texas Rangers starter Kyle Gibson set down 9 straight Twins before Mitch Garver hit a nice opposite-field single down the right-field line but Jake Cave lined out to center to end the 4th inning.
The one & only Willians “La Tortuga” Astudillo led off the bottom of the 5th inning with his 3rd HR of the season as Kyle Gibson hung a slider and it hung in the air until it hit the seats. Twins 3-1
Twins starters J.A. Happ allowed a hit in each of the 2nd & 3rd innings but worked around them and set down 9 in a row before Adolis Garcia singled with 1 out in the top of the 6th on Happ’s 101st pitch so Minnesota Twins manager Rocco Baldelli went to his bullpen & RHP Hansel Robles to face left-handed slugger Joey Gallo.
Robles was trying to hit the edges and got Gallo to ground out softly to 1st but he walked Willie Calhoun on 4 pitches and was visibly upset with some of the calls so Minnesota Twins pitching coach Wes Johnson took a Mound Visit to talk to his reliever. Minnesota Twins broadcaster Justin Morneau said Wes* had gone out to talk to starter José Berríos and told him his stuff was too good to be trying to hit the edges of the strike zone & he should attack the zone instead. Robles threw the next three pitches at 97, 96 & 98mph to strike out Charlie Culberson & end the top of the 6th with the Twins still leading 3-1.
Gibson set down the next 12 batters after the Astudillo HR to get his team through the 8th.
Robles came out for the 7th and set ‘em down 1-2-3 on a lineout to center field courtesy of another Great diving catch from Byron Buxton, a flyout to right field and a groundout to 2nd. RHP Tyler Duffey took over to start the 8th and he got a groundout to 2nd then gave up a ground-rule double down the left field line but struck out Adolis Garcia swinging for the 2nd out before Rocco went to LHP Taylor Rogers who threw 5 straight sliders to Joey Gallo to strike him out swinging.
Rogers then came out for the 9th looking for the 4-out save and gave up a solo HR to Willie Calhoun over the right center field wall to cut the lead in half. Charlie Culberson then hit a grounder to 3rd that went off of Josh Donaldson’s glove so he reaches on the error. Andy Ibanez pinch-hit for David Dahl & he singled through the left side. Jose Trevino pinch-hit for Josh Heim & set down a sacrifice bunt to advance the runners to 2nd & 3rd. Isiah Kiner-Falefa then hit a bloop to short left center field that Andrelton Simmons made a great catch on but Culberson tagged up and tied the game at 3.
The Twins then went down 1-2-3 in the bottom of the 9th on a Buxton flyout, a Cruz strikeout and a Polanco strikeout in an 8-pitch at-bat.
On to the 10th and the very popular extra-inning rules. LHP Brandon Waddell was brought in to pitch and he got a lineout to left center field the he threw 2 straight sliders to Adolis Garcia and may have hung the 2nd one so it ended up in the seats to put the Rangers up 5-3. Joey Gallo then doubled off the right center field wall and advanced to 3rd on a groundout to 1st then scored on an RBI-double off the bat of Charlie Culberson to make it 6-3 and that was it for Waddell.
RHP Jorge Alcala came in and struck out Eli White on 6 pitches to end the top of the 10th.
The Rangers brought in closer RHP Ian Kennedy and he gave up a line-drive single to Mitch Garver on the 1st pitch. Polanco, who started the inning at 2nd, advanced to 3rd. Jake Cave struck out swinging and Willians Astudillo grounded into a game-ending 6-4-3 double play.
FINAL SCORE
Texas Rangers 6, Minnesota Twins 3
W-Rodriguez (1-1) L-Waddell (0-1) S-Kennedy (8)
Home Runs:
MN: Byron Buxton (9), Astudillo (3)
TEX: Willie Calhoun (3), Adolis Garcia (7)
Doubles:
MN: None
TEX: Dahl (4), Lowe 5) Gallo (3) Culberson (6)
Pitching:
MN:
Happ: 5.1IP 4H 1R/ER 1BB 3K
Robles: 1.2IP 1BB 1K
Duffey: 0.2IP 1H 1K
Rogers: 1.1IP 2H 2R 1ER 1K 1HR (BS-2)
Waddell: 0.2IP 3H 3R 2ER 1HR (L)
Alcala: 0.1IP 1K
TEX:
Gibson: 8IP 3H 3R/ER 2BB 8K 2HR
Rodríguez: 1IP 2K 1 Win
Kennedy: 1IP 1H 1K 1 Save
Game Notes
*Willians Astudillo is just entertaining. He’s kind of like former Twin Eduardo Escobar as you can easily tell how much they love the game and how much fun they are to be around. La Tortuga makes weird faces and weird plays like when he pulls off his hat to track down fly balls. We can only assume that comes from being a catcher.
**I call this the Wes Effect. Wes Johnson is in his 3rd year as the Minnesota Twins pitching coach and he’s done a pretty good job as we’ve seen revivals from pitchers like RHP Tyler Duffey, RHP Matt Wisler & starters RHPs Michael Pineda, Jake Odorizzi & José Berríos. Should we also put RHP Kenta Maeda in here. How many others? He has a knack for getting more velocity out of pitchers and tweaking their pitch mixes to get the best out of them. We can’t say everyone has felt the positive “effect” on every pitcher but I think the best might be yet to come because the Twins should have pitching prospects coming in both the rotation and the bullpen somewhat soon.
After tonight’s result, there will be a lot of people calling for some changes quickly but I think the bullpen’s struggles is somewhat of a domino effect of RHP Alex Colomé starting the season terribly and having to move down the bullpen order to get some confidence back. Is it the talent of the pitchers or their command that’s causing these struggles? I think it’s the command and the pressure and the losing causing them to tighten up and try too hard &/or having to be too precise when they’re pitching.
It’s very interesting how they don’t seem to want to give RHP Jorge Alcala into more stressful situations. Wouldn’t he be a better option in the 10th than LHP Brandon Waddell?
Well, here’s your answer:
***Jake Cave is on a lot of fans minds in the Minnesota Twins first month of the season. It’s kind of sad because he’s on this roster in the role of 4th outfielder and he’s been thrown into an almost every day playing role but he’s also being moved around to different positions on the field. That’s probably not what his role is supposed to be. A 4th outfielder wouldn’t really be playing this much. He’s started 18 of the 27 games he’s played in for the first 28 games of the season. That’s not how often a usual 4th outfielder would play.
****The offense has not been good in late-inning clutch situations when the Minnesota Twins are trailing in games.
The Bottom Lines
It’s difficult to win Major League Baseball games when your team is playing well but it’s extremely difficult to win games when your team is only playing well part of the time and on only one side of the ball or one part of your team. I believe we all know this 2021 Minnesota Twins team will still get out of this bad stretch and be a great team when it is all said and done. It looked like they were maybe out of it but there were still bad things happening.
Hopefully, getting right back out there tomorrow will be good for them.
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