I hope you don’t like well-pitched, short games, because this was a doozy.
Adalberto Mejia started the game out pretty well. He pitched a 1-2-(walk)-3 first and in the 2nd he picked up 3 strikeouts. The 3rd was full of shenanigans, though.
Jose Iglesias and Ian Kinsler both hit singles to start the inning. Later, Justin Upton hit a double to right center. Zack Granite threw to relay-man Brian Dozier. Brian threw it to home but the ball got passed both the catcher Chris Gimenez and Mejia. Mejia threw to Gimenez but it missed him and rolled out to second. By the end of the madness two runs had scored and Upton was at third. Luckily, Mejia was able to work out of the inning with no further damage. Go find the video of that calamitous play here.
The Twins answered in the bottom of the 3rd, as Eduardo Escobar channeled his inner “Sano” with a 2-run blast into the third deck.
Mejia tossed a scoreless 4th inning, but left in the 5th inning because of his pitch count, replaced by Trevor “Shiny” Hildenberger. He cleaned up that inning nicely, with a pair of strikeouts. Meanwhile the Twins bats weren’t really doing much against Matt Boyd.
In the 7th, Jose Iglesias broke the tie with a run shot to the upper deck in left off of Hildenberger. Ryan Pressly came out of the bullpen and picked up a couple strikeouts to put out the fire.
In the bottom of the 7th, the Twins were able to load the bases with nobody out. With one out, they got a run on a grounder by Zack Granite that Ian Kinsler bobbled. But Dozier and Escobar both struck out to end the inning.
A double and three singles netted Detroit 2 more runs in the top of the 8th, all of this with two outs.
Once again, the Twins answered. Joe Mauer hit a 2-run single to make it a one run game. Justin Wilson got Jason Castro to strikeout to end the inning.
For good measure, the Tigers picked up 3 more runs in the 9th inning. Brandon Kintzler and Craig Breslow were both bad in this inning.
The last notable thing in a laundry list of notable things (seriously, look at all of these paragraphs) in this game was Brian Dozier’s 16th home run in the 9th.
This was the longest 9-inning game in Target Field history (4:19), and it sure felt like it.
Twins fall to 49-48 and 3rd place in the AL Central (2.5 GB) as KC and CLE both picked up wins. The Tigers improve to 45-52, 7 games back.
Studs:
Ryan Pressly: 1.1 IP, 0 H, 0 R/ER, 0 BB, 3 K
Brian Dozier: 2-4, 2 R, B, RBI, HR
Duds:
Miguel Sano: 0-4, 4 K
Trevor Hildenberger: 1.2 IP, 4 H, 2 R/ER, 2 K, HR
Jorge Polanco: 0-2, fielding error
Robot Roll Call:
# | Commenter | # Comments |
---|---|---|
1 | Coach Farmer | 49 |
2 | SooFoo Fan | 38 |
3 | CG19 | 22 |
4 | Win-MIN-Twins | 15 |
5 | Asthix | 14 |
6 | TJ Gorsegner | 14 |
7 | James Fillmore | 13 |
8 | Joel Hernandez | 8 |
9 | Daniel Carlson | 6 |
10 | montanatwinsfan | 5 |
11 | Can't Read Good | 5 |
12 | overkill94DT | 2 |
13 | blackmankitteh | 2 |
14 | Imakesandwichesforaliving | 1 |
15 | GopherinSoCal | 1 |
16 | Gunnarthor | 1 |
17 | Petron31 | 1 |
18 | Devereaux | 1 |
Comment of the game:
This discussion of the Marvel Cinematic Universe by Can’t Read Good.
Song of the day:
I promised “an actual good song” this week, but I didn’t get around to making a link dump this week so...