Game Score: Yankees 7, Twins 5

[Lucas Seehafer PT]

Well...what did you expect? The Minnesota Twins fall to the New York Yankees in their series opener.

Box Score
John Gant: 3 1/3 IP, 3 H, 4 R, 4 ER, 1 BB, 4 K
Home Runs: Jake Cave (2), Miguel Sanó (21)
Bottom 3 WPA: John Gant -.211, Josh Donaldson -.107, Luis Arraez -.081
Win Probability Chart (via FanGraphs)

Stop me if you’ve heard this one before, but the Minnesota Twins fell to the New York Yankees Thursday night.

The game functioned as the Twins’ second-straight bullpen game after Lewis Thorpe was removed early in Wednesday’s action with a shoulder injury. John Gant was the lone Twin that didn’t make an appearance during the series finale against the Cleveland Guardians and, thus, was awarded his 15th start of the season against the Yankees. How generous.

Gant performed admirably in his 3 ⅓ innings, striking out four. However, the Bronx Bombers scored four runs in a third inning capped off by a Kyle Higashioka home run. 

The Twins’ bats were kept quiet by Jameson Taillon until the sixth inning when Jake Cave hit his second home run of the year to get them on the board. Jorge Polanco later doubled in Andrelton Simmons and Max Kepler to cut the lead to 6-3. Polanco went 3-for-4 on the night with three RBI to raise his OPS to .822. 

 

However, Minnesota’s offense came a little too late. Miguel Sanó added his 21st dinger of the season to bring the Twins within two in the ninth, but they ultimately failed to capitalize further.

 

One positive to arise Thursday night was the return of Andrew Albers to the Twins bullpen. Albers — who is 35-years-old and was called up for the first time this season on Thursday morning — last pitched for the Twins during the 2016 season and hadn’t thrown in the majors at all since 2017. After a rough start to the season at Triple-A, Albers pitched to a 3.86 ERA for the Saints in 15 starts. He also was a member of the Canadian national team who fell just short of an Olympic berth earlier this summer. He tossed four innings and struck out four while surrendering only a single earned run Thursday night. 

The Twins and Yankees return to action on Friday evening when Charlie Barnes (0-2, 4.91) is expected to go up against Nestor Cortes (1-1, 2.55). First pitch is scheduled for 6:05 p.m. CT.

Postgame Interviews

 

 

Bullpen Usage Spreadsheet

	SAT	SUN	MON	TUE	WED	THURS	TOT
Gant	0	0	17	0	0	61	78
Barnes	0	73	0	0	0	0	73
Albers	0	0	0	0	0	63	63
Minaya	0	0	19	0	40	0	59
García	0	21	0	0	35	0	56
Colomé	0	13	10	0	31	0	54
Garza Jr.	16	0	0	13	23	0	52
Thielbar	0	15	19	0	9	0	43
Duffey	0	27	0	0	14	0	41
Coulombe	10	0	0	0	7	19	36

 

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[Aggies7]

Why couldn’t Maeda start today? He started on Saturday. After yesterday’s short start, we couldn’t do another bullpen game. I guess it didn’t matter as albers did a good job in giving innings but I would have been shocked if we got enough out of gant in order to win. Certainly would have felt better with maeda out there.

[Rosterman]

Well, gotta do a lot of looksees. Not sure how badly we want to protect 35-year-old lefthanded pitchers on a 40-man roster. Vincent was still able and is gone. Thielbar ahs been one of the success stories for the year. Albers gave us long relief, from a lefty, which means he almost went thru the order---twice. The Yankees order.

 

That is/was one of the plus marks for Gant, plus he ahs another year of arbitration (at what price). He can spot start, or go long relief. But he, too, is auditioning for a 40-man spot in the off-season, We forget that St. Louis was happy to give us a guy who might be too expensive for their needs and a possible Rule 5 for a pitcher they felt could be turned around for the remainder of the season. So Gant is auditioning, too.

 

As is Coulombe, amongst now a whole host of other names. That list of 10 names in the bullpen is a far cry from opening day: Rogers, Duffey, Alcala, Stashak, Thielbar, Robles, Colome, Waddell, Thorpe. Talk about turnover!

[insagt1]

Yanks were quick to show us the graphics of how bad the Twins have fared over the past 15 years or so against the Payroll. It ain't pretty. Twins just can't seem to gain any traction whatsoever against NY. Not a small sample size.  Twins have it a go but just couldn't overcome the early 6-0 deficit.

Polanco keeps hitting and Sano seems to have finally found himself at the plate. His 'k' count has dropped and he is getting his hits. Nice to see.  Kepler is lost again...ugly AB's. Donaldson not producing much. Is Garver hurt?

[Aerodeliria]

1 hour ago, insagt1 said:

Yanks were quick to show us the graphics of how bad the Twins have fared over the past 15 years or so against the Payroll. It ain't pretty. Twins just can't seem to gain any traction whatsoever against NY. Not a small sample size.  Twins have it a go but just couldn't overcome the early 6-0 deficit.

Polanco keeps hitting and Sano seems to have finally found himself at the plate. His 'k' count has dropped and he is getting his hits. Nice to see.  Kepler is lost again...ugly AB's. Donaldson not producing much. Is Garver hurt?

Nice summary :-). Kepler only produces in one game out of five, so it is still baffling why he continues to lead off.

[Whitey333]

Baldelli says Twins Albee's pitched great.  I guess he did.  Does he realize the team lost the game?  They are overmatched, again, by the Yankees.  Good comeback attempt.  But in the majors your goal is to win, not " look good.". Maeda was apparantly given extra days rest.  He doesn't do very well with all the time off.  I hope it works out for him.

[Dodecahedron]

I always thought it was Terry Ryan who used the Twin farm system to spend resources on prospects, having the MLB team work through the players growing pains, jettisoning the player as they should be entering their prime years, and then bringing them back to the team for another year before retirement.

I guess it's a Twins thing, not a Ryan thing.  Sorry, Terry.

[puckstopper1]

17 hours ago, Rosterman said:

As is Coulombe, amongst now a whole host of other names. That list of 10 names in the bullpen is a far cry from opening day: Rogers, Duffey, Alcala, Stashak, Thielbar, Robles, Colome, Waddell, Thorpe. Talk about turnover!

The starting rotation has gone thru the similar churn since the start of the season due to injuries and ineffectiveness. Remember when the Twins had a logjam of starting pitching with Berrios, Happ, Shoemaker, Maeda, Pineada, Dobnak, Thorpe and Smeltzer?  That seems like forever ago and only Maeda is on the active roster currently...

[mikelink45]

Is this the playoffs?  

[Dodecahedron]

On 8/20/2021 at 7:05 PM, mikelink45 said:

Is this the playoffs?  

It's the playoffs all year, baby!