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After cruising along the first four innings, Kansas City made Trevor May's third appearance another one to forget. May filled the bases on his own hand walking three in the inning when Salvador Perez and Billy Butler hit back-back RBI singles making it a 3-0 game. Alex Gordon would then reach on another single which promoted Anthony Swarzak to come in and finish the inning. All in all May went 4.2 allowing three earned runs, on seven hits while walking four. Some would argue May got squeezed on a pitch in the inning which would have gotten him out of the jam. It still doesn't take away the fact the kid has had a problem throwing strikes. The young righty has issued thirteen free passes in nine innings of work and has struck out just three batters.
What I've gathered in my expert analysis is he clearly has no out pitch. Major league hitters are not going to chase those "hard" heaters around the corners like they do in the minors. Speaking of heaters, he hasn't really reared back and fired some of those bullets we heard about in the minor leagues. Whether that's fatigue, the calf strain or just tricky Ricky he really hasn't shown that hard heater we heard about. With the minor league season winding down and the combination of 700 plus innings in the minor leagues, sending him down wouldn't do him any good.
The Twins looked to have a great chance in the first inning when Danny Santana stole third (because he's awesome) with Joe Mauer at the plate and one out. Joe would strike out which promoted a visit from Ron Gardenhire which cued another ejection for the active leader in ejections. With the Twins trailing by four in the seventh, Oswaldo Arcia hit 410 foot ROCKET to right to get the Twins on the board. Ozzie has been pepperin' the ball in the 2nd half after a ugly to start to his sophomore season. However Kansas City would get runs back in eight and ninth and led 6-1 heading into bottom of the ninth. Minnesota would make interesting though, after Arica and Kennys Vargas reached, Trevor Plouffe hit one for Olivia a towering Plouffe-bomb to the second deck making it a two run game. Sadly, Chris Pamelee and pinch-hitting Kurt Suzuki were retired and the red hot Royals took three out of four and patched their lead to two games in the AL Central.
Studs:
Arica
Gardy
Duds:
May and every player to take the mound last night