Rays 6, Twins 1: Bundy Roughed Up Early, Win Streak Over

[Thiéres Rabelo]

The winning streak is over. Tampa Bay ambushed Dylan Bundy right out of the gate, building a six-run lead in the first three innings, on their way to blowing out the Twins in the series opener.

Box Score
Starting Pitcher: Dylan Bundy, 6.0 IP, 7 H, 6 ER, 2 BB, 7 K (94 pitches, 57 strikes, 60.6%)
Home Runs: none
Bottom 3 WPA: Dylan Bundy (-.362), Jorge Polanco (-.042), Luis Arráez (-.032)
Win Probability Chart (via FanGraphs)

Tampa roughs up Bundy early, building a six-run lead
Before tonight’s game, Dylan Bundy had given up only one earned run in over fifteen innings of work this season. But he had a 6.19 career ERA against Tampa Bay, and, apparently, that track record came back to haunt him in this game. The Rays severely roughed him up before he could record his first out of the evening, building a four-run lead only eight pitches into Bundy’s start.

A pair of doubles to open the game, and the home team took a quick one-run lead. That was followed by a Yandy Díaz line drive to right that put men in the corners before Josh Lowe hammered a three-run shot to deep center. Bundy’s struggles continued as he walked the next batter, Randy Arozarena, who almost scored in the next at-bat, but he was caught at home plate by a beautiful Trevor Larnach assist from left.

On the other side, Corey Kluber had no trouble early against the Twins lineup. Despite some hard contact from Twins bats early, it took him only 20 pitches to retire the first six Minnesota batters in order. His offense provided him with some more run support in the second, as Bundy, still struggling with his command, gave up a leadoff walk to Taylor Walls, and he was pushed across a couple of at-bats later, making it 5-0 Tampa in the second.

Bundy settles down, but the offense can’t rally
After Kluber finished his first time through the other with yet a third perfect inning, Bundy started to find some groove. For the first time in the evening, he quickly retired the first two batters of the inning in the third. But Mike Zunino jumped on the first pitch he saw next for another Tampa Bay home run. He came back for the fourth and tossed his first 1-2-3 inning of the night.

Bundy's adjustments after the third inning would be pointless unless the offense could back him up. In the fourth, the bats came to life briefly and put the Twins on the board. Kluber hit Byron Buxton to lead off the inning, and a couple of at-bats later, Carlos Correa got Minnesota’s first hit of the night, scoring Buxton from second. After that, Jorge Polanco grounded into a double play, and the Twins had to settle for the one run.

Though the offense couldn’t come through and rally, Bundy made sure to eat up some more innings. He threw a couple more 1-2-3 innings, in the fifth and the sixth, before departing the game. Curiously enough, his final line saw him walking only two batters while striking out seven.

A couple of positive takeaways
Only a miracle could save the Twins offensively, but that didn't come close to happening. The silver lining tonight was Danny Coulombe's solid-as-a-rock outing out of the bullpen. He pitched a couple of scoreless frames, inducing six swinging strikes. He also avoided hard contact really well, limiting Rays batters to an average of only 85.1 mph exit velocity.

Despite the horrific night at the plate for Minnesota, another silver lining from tonight might have been another good game from Correa. Minnesota was limited to only three hits in the night, and two of them belonged to him. His overall season numbers still don't look good, but he is now 5-for-9 in the past two games, with a double and four runs batted in.

What’s Next?
Game 2 of the series is tomorrow, with the first pitch scheduled for 3:10 pm CDT. Former Ray Chris Archer (3.18 ERA) takes the mound for Minnesota, facing lefty Shane McClanahan (2.45 ERA).

Postgame Interview

Bullpen Usage Spreadsheet

	MON	TUE	WED	THU	FRI	TOT
Jax	0	10	0	46	0	56
Coulombe	0	0	20	0	35	55
Duffey	0	19	0	8	0	27
Thielbar	0	27	0	0	0	27
Pagán	0	23	0	0	0	23
Stashak	0	0	0	18	0	18
Smith	0	0	10	0	0	10
Duran	0	0	0	0	0	0
Winder	0	0	0	0	0	0

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[blindeke]

oh well. apparently Dylan Bundy is not Cy Young after all...

[VivaBomboRivera!]

Back to reality.  See you at the ball park again tomorrow.

[Squirrel]

Well ... that took a little wind out of the sails ... until the next gust  

[jimbo92107]

Impressive loss for Bundy. Instead of showing embarrassment, he took his lumps, then kept working on his game. In the end, working against live batters, Bundy got sharp and stayed there, finishing up looking as dominant as he did in his previous start. He also saved the pen from spending at least two more pitchers. 

Kudos, Mr. Bundy. Impressive loss.

[Mark G]

I know I got caught up in the euphoria of the win streak, I'm sure a lot of people did, but the reality is it was against 2 teams playing extremely poorly right now literally throwing 2 of those games away with errors.  We may have relaxed a little bit after such a good homestand that we weren't quite as sharp.  The weekend against a good team will show us a lot more about where we are right now.  Hopefully they will turn it around.

[h2oface]

Can't say that when Bundy was signed I didn't expect a bunch of starts like this. Hopefully he will find the mean inbetween this and his first few starts.

Twins are going to need to score 5-6 runs a game to have a successful season, and .500 should not be the considered successful.

[Karbo]

Was this the real Dylan Bundy?

[Major League Ready]

6 hours ago, h2oface said:

Can't say the when Bundy was signed, that I didn't expect a bunch of starts like this. Hopefully he will find the mean inbetween this and his first few starts.

Twins are going to need to score 5-6 runs a game to have a successful season, and .500 should not be the considered successful.

They have scored 3 or less in all 9 losses.  I would not be criticizing pitching at this point.  The weakness has been the heart of the order (Correa / Polanco / Kirilloff / Sano)

[rv78]

Twins are 2-5 against teams with a winning record and 9-4 against teams with a losing record. So they can beat the bad teams but can't beat the good teams which means they will finish somewhere around .500 unless they get better. Can't blame Bundy since everyone knows he is going to have games like this. He isn't an Ace and won't pitch like one every time out. The offense needs to get better and be more consistant or every time they face a Kershaw or a Kluber type pitcher this team will lose. 

[jmlease1]

Bundy looked really bad to start the game, almost like he was throwing BP. By the time he got out of it, he'd put the team in a big hole. Not great. We'll see how he bounces back? To me, he's the least likely starter to have sustained success and I look at him as a 5th starter, so expectations have to stay in context. Just frustrating to start it out so badly and feel like the game is over almost before it starts.

Be interesting to see what Archer has against his old team.

[heresthething]

Saw Buxton get beaned but wasn't able to watch all of Kluber's innings.  Did he come close to hitting anyone else?  Didn't seem to bother Buxton from what I could see but sure hope nothing comes of it.

[Doctor Gast]

22 minutes ago, jmlease1 said:

Bundy looked really bad to start the game, almost like he was throwing BP. By the time he got out of it, he'd put the team in a big hole. Not great. We'll see how he bounces back? To me, he's the least likely starter to have sustained success and I look at him as a 5th starter, so expectations have to stay in context. Just frustrating to start it out so badly and feel like the game is over almost before it starts.

Be interesting to see what Archer has against his old team.

Yeah, I'm leary about Archer starting against TB. I don't think there's any team that knows him any better than TB. He's up against McClanahan IMO their best SP right now. Hope Archer surprises us.

[h2oface]

All of one hit against Kluber in 6, who Boston rocked for 11 in 5 innings last time out. The dome had “perfect” weather…… so much for that excuse, for hitters - and Bundy. 

[Shaitan]

Stick a fork in him.

[twins_89]

Bundy has one bad inning in 4 starts (that all went 5+ innings), that's far better than I expected.

Also, what's up with Duran and Winder? They haven't pitched in almost a week.

[Squirrel]

6 hours ago, twins_89 said:

Bundy has one bad inning in 4 starts (that all went 5+ innings), that's far better than I expected.

Also, what's up with Duran and Winder? They haven't pitched in almost a week.

Winder will be starting tomorrow; and Duran pitched today (as you probably knew since you asked this prior to the game)