Twins 8, Royals 4: East Bound & Up

“So you got to dodge ‘em and you got to duck ‘em, you got to keep that diesel truckin’—just put that hammer down and give it hell!”

Today’s Twins/Royals contest represented the end of a long homestand for the Minnesota Twins. Though performance-wise it was fine (6-4), the weather frustratingly kept attendance sparse. With temps hovering in the mid-40s and biting 20-30 mph winds under a sunless sky, this game may have been the ultimate fan challenge. Fortunately, the Twins gave the die-hard faithful a lot to cheer about!

For a little while this looked to be a small-ball sort of affair, what with the first run coming off a Nick Gordon squeeze bunt scoring Byron Buxton.

But in the 3rd inning, with Max Kepler & Carlos Correa on base in front of him, Buxton deposited a no-doubter—none of that wall-scraping nonsense from yesterday—into the third deck to give the Twin Cities squad a 4-0 advantage.

Photo by David Berding/Getty Images

Not content with the 4-spot, the Twins kept knocking safeties—Gordon, Willi Castro, & Christian Vazquez—and when the dust had settled (probably literally in all that wind) it was 8-0 Twins!

Meanwhile, Sonny Gray was up to his usual routine: 6 IP, 7 K, 1 BB, 1 ER. Remarkably, such an outing will increase Gray’s microscopic ERA. It did, however, largely (see: Duds) allow Rocco Baldelli to rest the high-leverage bullpen arms that had become a bit over-exposed of late.

All in all, though, a nice series-clinching victory over the Royals for those who stuck it out. Hopefully by the time the team returns from the Windy City & Believeland, t-shirts and shorts will have replaced parkas and long-johns.

Your final: Twins 8, Royals 4.

Studs:

• Byron Buxton for Byron Buxton reasons.
• All the fans—not just today but this past week—who braved the conditions to root, root, root for the home team through facemarks and glove-thumping instead of traditional applause.
• Sonny Gray for continuing to be stingy in any climate.

Photo by David Berding/Getty Images

Duds:

• Home plate umpire Vic Carapazza, who had a curious strike zone and was calling questionable pitch clock violations all over the place. A dictator behind the plate—the worst kind of umpiring IMO.
• Josh Winder, whose terrible 9th inning once again (I believe this has happened 2-3 times now to different mop-up guys) required Jhoan Duran to be brought in for the final out.

Comment of the Game:

norff, for presumably having peanut butter and jelly sandwiches on the brain when Gray was escaping a jam (heh heh).