Brewers 8, Twins 7: Crawling to Defeat

On one of the hottest afternoons in recent Twins’ memory, the offense was humming for both teams. Or maybe the pitchers were struggling, to be fair. With the heat index at 110 degrees on the field, all the sweat made it difficult for the pitchers to get a good grip on the ball. Even the home plate umpire was struggling with sweat, getting the balls damp (oh my god) before they even got out to the pitchers.

Kenta Maeda had been on a hot streak for the Twins and the Brewers’ former Cy Young winner Corbin Burnes has been solid all season, but it didn’t matter in this heat as both pitchers struggled to throw strikes.

Minnesota was able to get Burnes early and often, scoring in the first, third, fourth, and sixth innings. Edouard Julien and Donovan Solano started the game off with singles, and a sacrifice fly from Carlos Correa brought in the game’s first run.

The Brewers answered with two in the bottom half of the inning, but two-out homers in the third, fourth, and sixth from Royce Lewis, Michael A. Taylor, and Kyle Farmer gave the Twins a 6-3 lead going into the bottom of the sixth.

Due to the heat and lack of strikes, Maeda was only able to get through five innings, giving way to the surprisingly reliable Emilio Pagán, who suddenly became unreliable once again, giving up a two-run homer to Willy Adames. Caleb Thielbar gave up a homer of his own in the seventh, allowing the Brewers to tie it up, and it stayed that way until extras.

The Twins got another clutch two-out hit from Ryan Jeffers to start off extras and give them a temporary lead, though it wasn’t without some hijinks. After spending all afternoon in the extreme heat crouched behind the plate, Jeffers’ legs seemingly just gave out on him attempting to beat out an infield single. He collapsed a few feet from the base, but was able to crawl his way to first, allowing the run to score.

Ultimately, they were just putting off the inevitable. Jhoan Duran, in his second inning of work, wasn’t as sharp as he was in the ninth. Willy “Bad Hitter Against Everyone But The Twins” Adames immediately drove in the tying run to start the inning and a fielding error by Taylor allowed him to advance to second. Adames then scored the winning run on a two-out infield single by Brice Turang. On a night when the ball was flying for the Twins, the winning hit didn’t even go 50 feet. Figures.

STUDS

Ryan Jeffers: 2-5, RBI, gutting out that game behind the plate

Lewis, Taylor, Farmer: each with big 2-out home runs

DUDS

Emilio Pagán: 1 IP, 2 R, 1 HR (BUT ALSO GIVE HIM CREDIT FOR BEING PRETTY GOOD THIS YEAR THANK YOU EMILIO)

Caleb Thielbar: 1 IP, 2 H, 1 R, 1 HR

The Twins are #BackInAction tomorrow in Minneapolis where it will mercifully finally start to cool down. They’ll face off with the Texas Rangers for the first time this year, who have been good, but are struggling lately.