Twins 6, Tigers 5: Twins Hold Off Tigers

Win Expectancy & Top 5 Plays Per WPA (via Fangraphs)

In his last outing, I thought Gibson looked pretty darn good against the Astros but that his defense let him down a little and he was left out there a batter too long. The result was that outing looked much worse on paper (6 IP, 4 ER). Well, it happened to Kyle again tonight.

Gibson was shutting out Detroit through seven innings. He was sent back out for the eighth and got the first batter out. From there, he surrendered a single, a walk and an RBI double before finally getting lifted.

Why Taylor Rogers came in at that point, I have no idea. The Twins had a five-run lead and Justin Upton, who entered the game with a .918 OPS vs. lefties, was due up. Hindsight is 20/20 I guess, but Upton cracked a three-run homer off the foul pole.

So in a matter of minutes, Gibson went from having pitched seven shutout innings to giving up three runs over 7.1 innings. But to be fair, he seemed to benefit from a Miguel Cabrera-less Tigers team that had little interest in working at-bats. Gibson needed just 22 pitches to get through the third, fourth and fifth innings combined.

To his credit, Gibson did pitch well and even managed to miss some bats. After failing to strike out more than four batters in seven-straight starts between June 8 and July 9, Gibby has now hit that mark in consecutive outings.

Detroit managed to tack on another run in the eighth, but could not complete the comeback. The top of the ninth inning opened with a crazy play that at first looked like a foul ball, then appeared it would be a leadoff double, but Eddie Rosario gunned down the runner at second base.

https://twitter.com/cjzer0/status/888956712203538433

Brandon Kintzler got the next two batters to ground out, securing his 27th save. It was the first time since May 11 he recorded more than three outs in an appearance.

This game was scoreless in the bottom of the third, but the Twins tallied three runs in the inning. It could’ve been more, but Robbie Grossman, who hit an RBI double earlier in the inning, made the third out at home trying to score on a Zack Granite single.

The Twins failed to capitalize on other scoring chances throughout the contest, but thankfully it didn’t matter. They tacked on two more runs in the fifth inning and it appeared they had a low-stress night ahead prior to all the late-inning dramatics.

With Byron Buxton’s return from the DL currently projected for Tuesday, Granite has little time left to make an impression. Another three hits and a stolen base tonight should help his case to stick around, but there are only so many at-bats to go around and it seems to be the team's preference to carry an eight-man bullpen. It’ll be interesting to see what happens.

The Twins also celebrated the 30th anniversary of the 1987 World Series tonight. Fox Sports North shared a lot of the fun on their YouTube channel. Here’s the pregame ceremonies, complete with highlights, introductions, home video from Dan Gladden and a speech by World Series MVP Frank Viola. If you missed this live, do yourself a favor and try to clear 32 minutes out of your day to check this out.

Bullpen Usage

Here’s a quick look at the number of pitches thrown by the bullpen over the past five days:

Sunday

Twins (Adalberto Mejia) vs. Detroit (Matt Boyd), 1:10 pm CT

The Twins have not been very good against lefties this season (.669 OPS vs. LHP and .725 OPS vs. RHP), but Boyd has really struggled over his last five starts. In his last 22 innings pitched, Boyd has surrendered 21 runs. Robbie Grossman has been excellent against Boyd, going 5-for-10 with two homers, a double and four walks.

Back on June 12, Mejia had a rotten start against the Mariners, giving up nine runs over 3.2 innings. In six stars since, Adalberto has only yielded 10 runs over 34.1 innings (2.62 ERA). Unlike the Twins, the Tigers have killed southpaws so far this season, posting an .841 OPS against left-handers, so expect Mejia to be tested.