Astros 8, Twins 4: Phil Hughes serves up some taters

It was not a good day for starter Phil Hughes, to say the least. After giving up a home run to George Springer on his very first pitch of the game, Hughes went on to surrender six runs (five earned) on nine hits over two innings, including another home run to Yulieski Gurriel and two doubles. It was bad.

A major error in center field by J.B. Shuck didn’t help, either.

Hughes was pulled from the game before he even reached his 75 pitch goal, so he had to finish his last 18 pitches in a bullpen session of shame. Afterwards, He talked to reporters about the outing, as seen in this video by Pioneer Press’s Mike Berardino:

The Astros’s other two runs in the game came off minor leaguer Nick Anderson, who pitched one inning, and Michael Tonkin, who pitches two.

Other than that, the Twins pitching was pretty good. Alex Wimmers had a great outing, giving up only one hit and one walk over two scoreless outings. He now has a 2.57 ERA this spring. Drew Rucinski threw a perfect top of the eighth inning.

As for hitting, the Twins did get two runs off Astro’s former Cy Young winner Dallas Keuchel in the third inning, which is significant because they were the first and only runs Keuchel has given up so far this spring. Those runs came thanks to an RBI double be Ehire Adrianza and an RBI single by Matt Hauge. Hauge, in fact, went 2-for-2 on the day also with a walk and a run scored.

Eduardo Escobar had a stud game too, going 2-for-3 with an RBI. Also going 2-for-3 on the day was J.B. Shuck, but as mentioned, he did not look good on defense.

Notes

• Chris Gimenez served as the starting catcher today, meaning presumed starting catcher for the season, Juan Castro, has yet to catch Phil Hughes.
• Drew Stubbs went 0-for-4, and is not hitting just .147 this spring. His days are numbered.