Astros 14, Twins 5: Houston clobbers Minnesota

It wasn't that Samuel Deduno didn't have movement on his pitches. He had as much movement on the breaking balls and the fastballs as he's had all season. He just couldn't locate much of anything, and the resulting early barrage from the Astros was just too much for the Twins to overcome. Especially considering that it just...never...stopped.

Houston's three-run fourth saw all of the runs charged to Deduno, even though Deduno neither recorded an out nor allowed a hit. He did walk two guys and hit another, and unfortunately his bullpen wasn't able to pick him up. At all.

The Twins did finally manage to get something going in the middle innings. After having a promising start to the bottom of the fourth erased on a double play enabled by a big infield shift, Eduardo Nunez put Minnesota on the board with a solo home run. Trevor Plouffe and Josh Willingham came up with run-scoring singles in the fifth, and that pulled the home team within two at 5-3.

Chris Carter's grand slam off of a very ineffective Brian Duensing put the game away in the top of the seventh. Not that the beat-down didn't continue. It was awful. Anthony Swarzak was fine in relief, but Deduno wasn't good today. Duensing put to rest any thoughts of a comeback. Casey Fien was touched for a run. Glen Perkins gave up the game's second grand slam.

Let's just not talk about it anymore. It just hurts too much.

ROLL CALL!

Win Expectancy Graph

Source: FanGraphs

Studs

A couple of guys on offense, I guess

Duds

OH MY LORD THE PITCHING, THE PITCHING IS ON FIRE, OH THE HUMANITY