Blue Jays 7, Twins 4: Let’s never play Toronto again

The Blue Jays came to Minnesota as one of the worst hitting teams in baseball. Well, apparently the panacea to all offensive problems is Twins pitching.

Starter Michael Pineda let the Jays on the board really early by giving up a 2 out dinger to Randal Grichuk, but appeared to still be pitching pretty well and had a 1-2-3 2nd. The Twinkies would respond in the bottom of said inning when Eddie Rosario dinged a dong of his own to lead off. C.J Cron struck out, but then Marwin Gonzalez Marwalked. Willians Astudillo sent him to third with a swing that looked like a man tripping down a spiral staircase, but blooped the ball into shallow left for a single. Jonathan Schoop followed with a single of his own, bringing Marwin in. Byron Buxton then bounced into what would be a double play if his name wasn’t Byron Buxton. His name, however, IS Byron Buxton so he beat the throw and Astudillo gallantly trotted home for the 3rd run of the inning.

Welcome to the fourth inning where dreams die. Grichuk singled and Justin Smoak followed that up with a home-run, tying the game. Not content with giving up only 2 runs in the inning, Pineda loaded the bases with two outs. Eric Sogard would be nice enough to unload those bases, doubling in all 3 Blue Jays. Sub-optimal.

The 8th saw two more dingers, one from each team. Teoscar Hernandez took Tyler Duffey deep and later Eddie Rosario-oh its magiced (you know.) his second of the day.

If you’ve been keeping score at home, the score is now 7 to 4. And according to math, 7 is more than 4, this the Twins lose another game to the Jays and lose the series 1 to 3. That’s a lot of losing.

The Twins now head to Baltimore to play a team that might just be historically bad.

STUDS: Rosario, Ryne Harper

DUDS: Kepler, Cruz, Polanco (No hits between them) and Pineda

Some Notes:

• The spoonerism of Byron Buxton is Byron Buxton.
• Willians Astudillo is fun as hell to watch even when he’s doing nothing of note.
• He bluffed stealing home today and now I really want to see that actually happen.
• Ryne Harper’s curveball is so slow that sometimes butterflies rest on them mid flight.
• Annex Canada.

ROBOTIC ROLL CALL!