Twins 2, White Sox 1: Twins Catch Break, Win Thriller

I'm forever the optimist so hopefully this is the kind of fluky, momentum-shifting win that kicks us out of this offensive slump so we can win legitimate games. Sometimes all it takes is one at-bat like Correa's. Go Twins!

Wow!

Over a 162 game schedule all sorts of funky things occur - good and not so good; Yes, on Correa's single in the hole the White Sox threw it all over the place allowing for a second run to score. Reminder: with two outs Jeffers hit a double and Arraez worked a walk. It wasn't all just good fortune.

Nice work, Griffin Jax!  
 

All the pitchers actually.  Duffy really needed that clean, high leverage inning and Pagan batted.

14 minutes ago, ashbury said:

I'll throw out an unpopular opinion, that after the leadoff double, Pagan really pitched.  Strategically he didn't let the better hitters beat him, and went basically after the #8 and #9 guys when the guys before those didn't get themselves out.  He's not good enough to blow them away, as witnessed by the sequence of foul balls, but he went with a plan.  It was bend but not break territory, and of course it could have come out much differently, but I want to give Pagan credit.  He didn't simply luck into the result he got.  He worked hard and smart for it.  He had just enough.

I hear ya.  I looked at who was coming up after that double and was like...uh oh, this isn't good. Doesn't lighten up until the 8th spot.  I would say that it didn't make it easy to watch though with how far off some of those pitches were.

Also - we don't win unless Jeffers dominates like he did in the 9th behind the plate.  Between arguably stealing some close pitches as strikes (including the last one) and blocking that ball in the dirt, that was impressive. 

18 minutes ago, ashbury said:

I'll throw out an unpopular opinion, that after the leadoff double, Pagan really pitched.  Strategically he didn't let the better hitters beat him, and went basically after the #8 and #9 guys when the guys before those didn't get themselves out.  He's not good enough to blow them away, as witnessed by the sequence of foul balls, but he went with a plan.  It was bend but not break territory, and of course it could have come out much differently, but I want to give Pagan credit.  He didn't simply luck into the result he got.  He worked hard and smart for it.  He had just enough.

The umpire helped him out too. 

20 minutes ago, ashbury said:

I'll throw out an unpopular opinion, that after the leadoff double, Pagan really pitched.  Strategically he didn't let the better hitters beat him, and went basically after the #8 and #9 guys when the guys before those didn't get themselves out.  He's not good enough to blow them away, as witnessed by the sequence of foul balls, but he went with a plan.  It was bend but not break territory, and of course it could have come out much differently, but I want to give Pagan credit.  He didn't simply luck into the result he got.  He worked hard and smart for it.  He had just enough.

I think strategically is a bit of a stretch. He pitched carefully (probably a bit overly so) to Pollock and Vaughn. He then had no choice but to go after the 8 and 9 hitters. I do think his control wasn't as bad as it might have seemed since he was able to throw strikes once he had no margin for error.

Really only Abreu's throw was egregious.

Anderson made an offline throw from very deep in the hole.  It would have been close enough with an online throw that Correa was rightfully credited with a single.

Abreu just threw wildly to home without any thought while the runners were just standing on 1st and 3rd.

Overall their defense made me appreciate what the Twins have this year though.

This is the kind of nail-biting win that tells a team....

...They better battle all nine innings, or they're going to have the worst record in baseball. 

Duffy pitches well, gets a hold, and Jeffers comes through with a big hit. Quelle surprise! Nice job by Jax and Ober.

I have kind of a dumb question:  I missed that part of the game, so I watched the clip here.  Jeffers got a ground rule double and Arraez worked a walk.  Correa hits the ball into the hole and Jeffers scores from................3rd?  It never explains how he got to 3rd.    How did he get to 3rd?  

1 minute ago, stringer bell said:

 

 

Wild enough for Jeffers to go to 3rd, but not wild enough for Arraez to go to 2nd?    I miss so much at work.  

3 minutes ago, stringer bell said:

During the Arraez at-bat.

Got it!  Makes sense now!

Great win.

But this team needs a closer. The Rogers trade nearly bit us for the 3rd time in 2 weeks. 

I mean....we'll take it. Twins need every win they can get this year, by hook or by crook. The Sox completely gave it away, and the Twins almost gave it back. Two teams that are struggling horribly offensively right now and are pressing on defense. If the Sox are hitting, Anderson just puts that ball in his pocket and right now we'd be tied 1-1 in the 35th inning.

Pagan got it done, but good closers go 1-2-3 and we go home without the drama. That kind of effort isn't really going to get it done most of the time.

Twins can't score at all this year, Royals and Sox can't score either, is scoring wayyyy down in baseball right now? Or is this just happening to AL Central teams that play outdoors? 

The offense looked bad, but Kopech looked like what he's been sold as, and it was his third exceptional start in a row. It isn't all on the offense (this time).

Nice win!  I won't call it a great win just a nice one.  The following games is what is going to determine if the offense is really turning it around.  The fact that the White Sox gave away the game doesn't mean we broke a slump.  The offense scored 2 basically free runs.  Twins only had 5 hits and the offense was very anemic again!  I'm very happy that all the central division clubs, including the Twins, are hovering around .500.   I think that bodes well for the Twins if they can get their offense to play in sinc with the great starting pitching we have gotten.  If that happens soon the rest of the central had better watch out for the Twins.  The last three games the Twins have lost 2-0, won 1-0 and won 2-1.  The fact they won two of those games is amazing and a tribute to the starting pitching.  If we can continue to get consistent solid starting pitching, and if the bats ever wake up, it could really be fun.  Today is a big game in Twins trying to turn the corner.  A solid win would help!

Let's just say the Twins got lucky. Rocco was proud of the way his team played. Despite his efforts to blow the game, yes they managed to take the win due to the Sox handing it to them yet almost taking it back in the 9th. Why was Larnach lifted for Garlick when he is one of the few actually hitting the ball? Why do you trust Duffey to pitch in a game this close after his last performances when you had at least 3 other options? Where was the next pitcher in the 9th to relieve Pagan if he got in trouble? Rocco was going to stick with him no matter how it turned out. There was no Plan B in the 9th or we would have seen it or can't Rocco make a pitching change anymore in the middle of an inning? I'll give credit to Pagan for not giving in and to the Ump for making the correct call on a close pitch for strike 3 to end the game. But overall it was another dismal performance by the offense. How many games is this team going to win 1-0 or 2-1? Not many.

1 hour ago, bighat said:

1 hour ago, bighat said:

Twins can't score at all this year, Royals and Sox can't score either, is scoring wayyyy down in baseball right now? Or is this just happening to AL Central teams that play outdoors? 

Yep, all over baseball. Observers like Gleeman here and at the Athletic speculate about reasons: dead ball? Humidor now used at every park? Weather? Shortened spring training? Fans of most teams are feeling the same pain.

8 hours ago, ashbury said:

I'll throw out an unpopular opinion, that after the leadoff double, Pagan really pitched.  Strategically he didn't let the better hitters beat him, and went basically after the #8 and #9 guys when the guys before those didn't get themselves out.  He's not good enough to blow them away, as witnessed by the sequence of foul balls, but he went with a plan.  It was bend but not break territory, and of course it could have come out much differently, but I want to give Pagan credit.  He didn't simply luck into the result he got.  He worked hard and smart for it.  He had just enough.

He didn’t give in but I do wonder if you write the same comment if that last pitch is called a ball and the batter walks.

8 hours ago, adorduan said:

The umpire helped him out too. 

This ump had a pretty big zone all night. I wouldn't say he had an ideal game behind the plate, but he was pretty consistent both ways.

Series like this you don't care how you get the win, just that you get it. That infield single from Correa might be what gets him on track. Jeffers got a big hit in a tight situation, which was great to see, and he caught a nice game. Interesting to see Jax pumping so many sliders: if he's getting a good feel for that pitch it should help him as an option out there and might help his fastball play up a little.

Ober pitched pretty well, I thought. Got punished for a mistake, but didn't let it rattle him. Thought his command was pretty good out there. 

Kopech is a really good pitcher. Wish he wasn't playing for the damn ChiSox, because he looks like a rotation stud.

2 hours ago, big dog said:

The offense looked bad, but Kopech looked like what he's been sold as, and it was his third exceptional start in a row. It isn't all on the offense (this time).

His fastball is obviously very tough to hit.

I think he was somewhere around 75% fastballs. I don't think too many were located in good places to hit, and the Twins didn't really have any success on the few that were. Credit goes to Kopech there.

But the Twins should get familiar with him this year. I would hope they can find a way to hit his fastball if he continues such a fastball heavy approach.