Astros 11, Twins 3: Just getting warmed up for game three, right?

Mother Nature had a few things to say about this game. The Minnesota Twins and Houston Astros looked to play game two of their three game series last night, but some dangerous storms inundated the Minneapolis-St Paul metro, forcing the game to be suspended last night and resumed before today’s scheduled game three.

Before the storms rolled through Target Field, Chris Archer took the mound for Minnesota. His outing didn’t yield ideal results, leaving the Twins in a spot for the fourth game in a row where their starter could not get past the fourth inning. After a quick first, the Astros were able to get to work fast in the second. Back-to-back singles from Yordan Alvarez and Yuli Gurriel meant runners on the corners. Gurriel moved over to second base on a passed ball by Gary Sanchez and Jeremy Pena hit a sacrifice fly to score one run while Jose Siri, founder of that Siri application that you can boss around (Jose just wants to play baseball for the halibut, not the money) lined a single to center to make the game 2-1.

The third inning started with a Jose Altuve homer. After issuing three walks in five at-bats, Archer allowed a single to Jeremy Pena. Two runs scored and the Astros were quick to take a 5-1 lead in part one of this game.

It doesn’t mean the Twins batters didn’t try this early in the game. The bottom of the first saw two doubles - one by Max Kepler and one by Jorge Polanco - that gave the home time a short 1-0 lead off Astros starter Jose Urquidy. Royce Lewis singled in the home half of the third and got into scoring position thanks to a Kepler ground-out, but Sanchez flied out to leave him in scoring position.

The rain started to come down heavily in the second or third inning, but the game chugged along until Mother Nature forced some warnings to be issued in the metro area for possible tornadoes and for hail and severe winds. The Twins took the field to start the fourth inning with Yennier Cano being announced as the new pitcher. However, the umpires saw lightning and halted play. After 90 minutes of torrential downpours and gusty winds, the game was suspended, leaving Cano being one of two Major League pitchers to be on the box score without throwing a pitch... for now.

14-and-a-half hours later... with the score 5-1 in favor of the visiting team, the Twins kinda showed up, but not really. Byron Buxton was pulled in favor of Mark Contreras playing left field while Gilberto Celestino slid over to play center field. Cano finally got a true “first MLB appearance” once the game resumed. He struck out Martin Maldonado for his first major-league K and cruised through two innings before hitting a wall in the top of the sixth. Cano served up a homer to Kyle Tucker before striking out Jeremy Pena. Then the Astros hitters strung together six hits in a row - including back-to-back-to-back doubles - off of Cano and Cody Stashak, powering forward to an 11-2 lead by the end of the inning.

The Twins tried to get some momentum going in the bottom of the fifth, cobbling together a double by Celestino and a single by Lewis to allow a sacrifice fly by Contreras, scoring Celestino and getting our good friend Mark his first big-league RBI ever!

The Astros bullpen of Bryan Abreu, Phil Maton, Ryne Stanek, and Hector Neris held the Twins back, although they kept it noisy. The four combined for 6.0 IP, 7 H, 2 R, 3 BB, 7 K to slowly shut the door on Minnesota in Minneapolis.

Oh, and Nick Gordon pitched a scoreless ninth inning!

Houston 11, Minnesota 3
W: Abreu (2-0)
L: Archer (0-1)

Game three of this series will start ... NOW! JOSHWINDERVSLUISGARCIATAWNYHASTHEGAMETHREADGOTOITNOW

STUDS

• Nick Gordon: 1.0 IP, 1 H
• Jorge Polanco: 2-for-4, 2 RBI, BB, K
• Gilberto Celestino: 2-for-4, R, 2 K
• Royce Lewis: 2-for-4, K

DUDS

• All others that pitched for the Twins

COMMENT OF THE GAME THREAD

Inthebasenent: “This hail is brutal... gonna turn my truck into a giant deviled egg holder!”

You gotta see the bright side of this - you now have a new food truck! All jokes aside, hopefully everyone got through last night’s storms unscathed and safely!