Minnesota Twins RHP Jose Berrios gets Game 2
The Minnesota Twins will see if their #1 starter can start to right the ship in Game 2 today. He’s struggled so far this season and the Twins, their fans and probably most of all Jose Berrios, expect more from Jose Berrios.
It started badly when Jose Berrios loaded the bases with a single & 2 walks but he struck out the side in the 1st to keep the game scoreless.
Kansas City Royals starter LHP Danny Duffy had some similar struggles in the 1st inning but his team’s defense let him down when leadoff hitter Mitch Garver reached on a throwing error from SS Alberto Mondesi. SS Jorge Polanco singled to right field and a Wild Pitch then advanced Garver to 3rd & Polanco to 2nd. 2B Marwin Gonzalez had a great at-bat and eventually hit a sacrifice fly to right field to score Garver from 3rd. 1-0 Twins
The Royals got 3 singles in the top of the 2nd to tie the game at 1 on a Whit Merrifield RBI-Single. Berrios then had a good 3rd with a groundout & 2 swinging strikeouts but Royals pitcher LHP Danny Duffy started pitching very well after that 1st inning. He sat down the next 15 of 17 Twins batters, allowing a monster blast to center field from Nelson Cruz and a walk to Ehire Adrianza before being replaced after the 5th inning, striking out 8.
The Royals bullpen took care of the rest giving up just a hit batsman and a walk in the last 2 innings to earn a split of the doubleheader and winning 4-2 which is exactly what the Twins did in Game 1.
Jose Berrios’ start to the season is worrisome and it makes you wonder what’s wrong. His command isn’t there. Why?
We do know one thing and that is that Jose Berrios has always had a great work ethic so he’s going to figure this out.
Game 3 tomorrow at 1:10pm on Fox Sports North:
Twins RHP Randy Dobnak (3-1, 0.90 ERA)
vs
Royals RHP Brady Singer (1-1, 4.50 ERA)
P.S. – So…we just saw 2 7-inning games. What do you think?—I don’t like it. I get it for this season with the shortened schedule for doubleheaders only but I hope that’s all it is. It’s a minor-league thing. This is Major League Baseball. “Let’s play 9” is the saying not “Let’s play 7!” Who has ever said that?
—We haven’t seen the extra-inning start-the-inning-with-a-runner-on-2nd thing yet. I can’t imagine I’ll like that, either.
—Both things make some sense in the minor-leagues where they don’t want young pitchers putting all those innings on their arms so they want to get the games over quicker.
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