Twins Video
Box Score
Kenta Maeda: 5 IP, 6 H, 3 ER, 3 BB, 5 K (63-percent strikes)
Homeruns: Sano (18), Polanco 2 (19, 20)
Top 3 WPA: Polanco (.259), Colome (.086), Kepler (.055)
Win Probability Chart (via Fangraphs)
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Kenta Maeda Provides Five Solid Innings
At one point, it looked like Maeda was locked in and cruising to provide the Twins with some much needed innings after the bullpen was taxed on Friday night.
Unfortunately, back-to-back innings of 25 plus pitches ended his day after the fifth inning in what ended up being a good not great start for the right-handed starter.
Right away in the bottom of the first the Astros put a threat together with some bloop base hits and shoddy Twins defense, but Maeda struckout Yordan Alvarez and Carlos Correa to end the inning and limit the damage to one run. Shutting down that threat lead to the aforementioned run of Maeda retiring the next nine (tweet was wrong) Astros hitters with the help of a nice defensive play by Luis Arraez on a ball that had an xBA of .380 off the bat of Kyle Tucker. The Astros would put together threats in the fourth and fifth innings, and although he needed a total of 56 pitches to battle through, he was able to limit the damage to just one run in each inning on some unfortunate heads up..misplays…?
We would have loved to see Maeda get past the fifth inning, especially considering the state of the bullpen, but his box score doesn’t give him the credit he deserves against the best offense in baseball. Out of the 23 batters faced he started 16 of them with first-pitch strikes. Moreover, he was dotting the edges of the zone with his slider which generated 12 whiffs of the 16 whiffs he forced on the day.
Polanco Leads Offensive Charge with Two Home Runs
The Twins Daily Hitter of the Month for July is continuing his torrid hitting streak into August as he entered today with an OPS of 901, three homeruns, and six RBI’s in 26 at-bats over six games. After Sunday’s contest, he has now hit five homeruns while getting at least one hit in all but one of seven August games.
The Twins went down quietly in the first inning, but otherwise had baserunners in nearly every inning, including the 2nd when Trevor Larnach punched a two-out single to the opposite field, scoring Jake Cave.
The two-runs in the fourth inning came on this absolute moonshot from Miguel Sanó, his 18th of the season, that landed on the railroad tracks.
The Twins only mustered up one-run in the fifth inning thanks to a lead off homerun from Polanco, his first of the day and 19th of the year, but chased starter Lance McCuller Jr out of the game by loading the bases after a 5-pitch walk by Larnach. To nobody's surprise, Andrelton Simmons swung at two terrible pitches before lining out to left field.
Polanco came back up in the sixth, this time against righty Phil Maton, but ended the at-bat with the same result from the fifth inning.
In all, the Twins had five hitters with multi-hit games: Max Kepler (3), Polanco (2), Arraez (2), Sanó (2), and Larnach (2) while all of those hitters but Kepler also added a walk to their day at the plate. Of course Polanco was the player of the game, but what was more encouraging was the two singles from Larnach on inside pitches that he punched to the opposite field. The rookie is trying to recover from the month of July where he had an OPS of .518 by posting an August OPS of .900 coming into today and having really productive at-bats.
Bullpen Usage
Juan Minaya, who started warming in the fifth inning, came on in the sixth where he went 1-2-3 thanks to a 6-4-3 double play. Tyler Duffey came on in the seventh but was pulled mid-inning after a walk, which was erased by another 6-4-3 double play, and back-to-back doubles that lead to an Astros run. Duffey was followed by Danny Coulombe who ended the inning with a Yordan Alvarez groundout. Jorge Alcala needed 29 pitches in the eighth but ultimately was able to hold the Astros while striking out Tucker and former Twins catcher Jason Castro. Alex Colome earned the save in the 9th shutting down the Astros 1-2-3.
| TUE | WED | THU | FRI | SAT | SUN | TOT | |
| Minaya | 0 | 44 | 0 | 17 | 0 | 12 | 73 |
| Gant | 22 | 0 | 0 | 17 | 13 | 0 | 52 |
| Thielbar | 0 | 22 | 8 | 0 | 20 | 0 | 50 |
| Colomé | 20 | 0 | 7 | 17 | 0 | 18 | 62 |
| Coulombe | 13 | 0 | 17 | 14 | 0 | 7 | 51 |
| Duffey | 0 | 0 | 21 | 20 | 0 | 15 | 56 |
| Alcala | 0 | 0 | 14 | 14 | 0 | 29 | 57 |
| Burrows | 0 | 13 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 13 |
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