Matthew Lenz

The Twins finish the season on a high note with back-to-back wins and a series victory over the Royals. They end one of the most disappointing seasons in MLB history with a record 73-89 and last place in the AL Central. That and more in today's recap! Box Score Charlie Barnes: 2.2 IP, 7 H, 2 ER (3 R), 1 BB, 3 K Homeruns: Polanco (33), Buxton (19) Top 3 WPA: Polanco (.104), Minaya (.091), Vincent (.085) Win Probability Chart (via Fangraphs) Twins Offense Strikes Early It didn’t take but seven pitches for the Twins to take a three-run lead against rookie Jackson Kowar. After a single by Luis Arraez to start the game, Byron Buxton extended his MLB record with his 41st extra-base hit, and then Jorge Polanco went boom. The onslaught continued with a Josh Donaldson walk, Max Kepler single, and an RBI single from Miguel Sanó making it 4-0 Twins before they recorded their first out with a Brent Rooker strikeout. A Nick Gordon fielder's choice scored Kepler and then Ryan Jeffers struck out to end the inning with a 5-0 cushion for Charlie Barnes. The Twins were mostly quiet until the top of the lineup was due up for a third time in the top of the fifth. Arraez led off with another single before Buxton, once again, extended his MLB record with another extra-base hit…this time a four bagger to make it 7-0. That would be the last of the Twins threats of the day as they were only able to muster up two more hits, another came from Arraez, in the last three innings of play. Charlie Barnes Gets Knocked Out Early but Bullpen Finishes Year Strong For the first time all season, Barnes wasn’t able to give the Twins four innings as he was pulled after just eight outs. In his 2 ⅔ innings he allowed nine baserunners and three runs (two earned). He actually posted a respectable 13-percent whiff percentage but when the Royals made contact, they averaged an exit velocity of 106.2 miles per hour, which was ultimately his demise. Juan Minaya came on in relief and was able to hold the Royals to just the three runs followed by a two strikeout inning in the fourth. Nick Vincent shined in his two innings needing only 15 pitches to strikeout two Royals and get six outs. Not to be outdone by Vincent, Kyle Barraclough struck out the side in the seventh and added one more in the eighth before being pulled in favor of Jorge Alcala who finished the inning with a strikeout of his own. Alcala pitched a clean ninth with two strikeouts and earned his first career save after blowing his first four opportunities this year. WED THU FRI SAT SUN TOT Barraclough 0 14 0 0 36 50 Minaya 22 0 0 0 27 49 Thielbar 0 14 0 26 0 40 Farrell 0 0 38 0 0 38 Moran 0 0 38 0 0 38 Duffey 21 0 0 15 0 36 Alcalá 0 13 0 0 19 32 Vincent 0 16 0 0 15 31 Colomé 18 0 0 7 0 25 Coulombe 0 0 15 0 0 15 Garza Jr. 0 12 0 0 0 12 View full article

D’OH ??‍♂️. Fixed…thank you!!

The Twins got to their former teammate but ultimately weren't able to overcome the five-run first inning from the Blue Jays. They drop the rubber match to Toronto and drop to 65-85 on the season. That and more in today's recap. Box Score Luke Farrell: 1.0 IP, 7 H, 5 ER, 1 K (70.5-percent strikes) Homeruns: Rortvedt (3) Bottom 3 WPA: Farrell (-.332), Kepler (-.099), Cave (-.097) Win Probability Chart (via Fangraphs) José Berríos Stifles Twins Lowly Offensive Attack The big storyline headed into today was the Twins bad offense against “old friend” José Berríos who’s having the best second half of his career. Despite pitching well for Toronto over the last month and half, today’s start by the former Twins pitcher was reminiscent of his time in Minnesota. Over the first three innings of the game, Berríos was on point by allowing just one hit, a 1st inning double to Byron Buxton, but only struckout one hitter. The Twins were able to put together a little rally in the fourth when Berríos hit Josh Donaldson which was followed up by back-to-back doubles from Miguel Sano and Nick Gordon to give the Twins their first runs of the game. Berríos settled back by getting 10 of the next 11 Twins batters out and allowing a lone walk to Donaldson in the top of the 6th. He’d go out for the 7th but wouldn’t be able to finish the inning as he allowed a solo homerun to Ben Rortvedt, who was batting ninth for the Twins today. The Twins didn’t have the baserunners or runs to show it but they were actually able to hit their former teammate pretty hard today generating 11 balls with exit velocities of 95 miles per hour or greater. For reference, the Twins bullpen game generated 12 hard hits over the same amount of innings. The three runs against Berríos were the only runs the Twins would get as they weren’t able to muster up a hit after the Rortvedt homer. Bullpen Needs Relief Early The Twins elected to use a bullpen game today, which typically means that each relief pitcher used will try and give the club two to three innings. Unfortunately, Luke Farrell got clobbered in the first inning giving up seven straight hits, including a double and two-run homerun, and five earned runs. Farrell was relieved by Nick Vincent at the start of the second inning who was able to silence the best offense in baseball with two innings of shutout work giving up only a hit and a walk while striking out one. Juan Minaya came on in the fourth allowing a walk and a hit but striking out the nine, one, and four hitters in the Blue Jays high powered offense. He continued his strong appearance with two more strikeouts in the fifth and generated 15-percent whiff rate on his fastballs over the two innings pitched. Caleb Thielbar was up next on the merry-go-round giving up one hit while striking out one. Danny Coulumbe finished up the last two innings of the game by striking out two and allowing just one hit. WED THU FRI SAT SUN TOT Moran 34 0 0 34 0 68 Barraclough 0 0 0 32 0 32 Coulombe 0 0 0 0 0 0 Colomé 0 0 14 0 0 14 Vincent 21 0 0 0 40 61 Alcalá 0 0 13 0 0 13 Garza Jr. 0 0 0 17 0 17 Duffey 0 0 16 0 0 16 Minaya 0 0 0 0 36 36 Farrell 0 0 0 0 34 34 Thielbar 0 0 0 0 22 22 View full article

I’d say acknowledging more than celebrating. The whiffs he’s generated in such few innings and his K/BB ratio have been very good this year. His ERA right now is better than Berríos career ERA entering 2020 and is better than Berríos ERA was at the same point in their careers. I’m not saying he is or will be better than Berríos, but in a crappy year I think we can acknowledge Ober has been a pleasant surprise for a guy who nobody would have expected to pitch for the Twins this season.

The Twins drop the series rubber match and fall to 63-80 on the season with a 5-3 loss to the Kansas City Royals on Sunday. Buxton, Brent, Bailey, and the Bullpen tried their best but the top of the Royals lineup was too much for the Twins. That and more in today's recap! Box Score Bailey Ober: 4.1 IP, 5 H, 2 ER, 6 K (65.3-percent strikes) Homeruns: none Bottom 3 WPA: Sano (-.409), Alcala (-.184), Astudillo (-.154) Win Probability Chart (via Fangraphs) Another Strong Start from Bailey Ober Take out the first six batters that Ober faced today and you would remove three of the five hits he gave up and both earned runs. Whit Merrifield and Nicky Lopez got things going early for the Royals offense with a double and single, respectively, followed by a Salvador Perez sacrifice fly giving the Royals an early 1-0 lead. Ober got out of the jam with back-to-back flyouts before giving up a 403 foot homerun to Adalberto Mondesi to begin the 2nd inning. He settled in quickly after the homerun, striking out six of the next seven batters he faced and retiring nine consecutive batters total, before giving up a single to Ryan O’Hearn to start the fifth. The O’Hearn single, coupled with a single from Sebastian Rivero in the nine hole, would mark the end Ober’s day as he was slated to face Merrifield with one out and runners on 1st and 2nd. Despite being at just 75 pitches, he was pulled in favor of recent call-up and fellow rookie reliever, Jovani Moran rather than being asked to face the top of the Royals lineup for a third time. Sometimes there is more to strong starts than innings pitched and strikeouts, especially when you’re looking for positives in an otherwise awful year. Ober has been a nice surprise for the Twins rotation as today marks his ninth consecutive starts of three earned runs or less. The naysayers will bring up the lack of the innings, many of those starts are five innings or less, but lest not forget he’s supposed to be in St. Paul right now. Instead, he’s pitching in Minneapolis and generated 16 whiffs today, which is elite when he only threw 75 pitches. Moreover, he’s quietly putting together one of the better rookie campaigns that people outside of Twins Territory have never heard of. Offense Can't Survive on Buxton's Multi-Hit Day Despite being a rookie, this was already Kris Bubic’s fifth appearance (fourth start) against the Minnesota Twins, who he has a 4.76 ERA against, but today would be different. After giving up a lead off double to Byron Buxton and a sacrifice fly to Luis Arraez two batters later, he would shut down the Twins giving up just two additional hits (Buxton again, then Simmons) over the next five innings. The Twins would chase him out in the sixth with a Buxton leadoff single, followed by a Rob Refsnyder single, Luis Arraez lineout, and Josh Donaldson walk to load the bases. Righty reliever Domingo Tapia would come on to strikeout Miguel Sano on just three pitches but wouldn’t come away unscathed after a clutch two-out double from Brent Rooker to knot the game at three runs apiece. Aside from Luis Arraez reaching on a Mondesi error in the eighth and a Kepler single in the ninth, the Twins offense went down quietly in the final three innings of the game. Bullpen Usage Chart Moran came on and immediately christened himself as a Twins reliever by allowing an inherited run to score off of a Whit Merrifield double. He settled in to finish the 5th but couldn’t finish the sixth after loading the bases with a lead off single and back-to-back walks with two outs. Ralph Garza Jr., who’s another rookie putting together a solid season, would need just one pitch to get out of the jam and pitched a clean seventh inning. Jorge Alcala pitched the eighth allowing the first two hitters to reach base and ended up allowing one of those runners to score on a Kyle Isbel single. Juan Minaya did more of the same in the ninth which resulted in the Twins chasing two runs entering the last half inning of the game. Despite the rough finish, it was a decent day overall for the bullpen who pitched 4 2/3 innings giving up just two earned runs. WED THU FRI SAT SUN TOT Minaya 0 0 40 0 17 57 Thielbar 8 0 0 26 0 34 Farrell 0 32 0 12 0 44 Colomé 0 0 12 0 0 12 Coulombe 0 15 0 23 0 38 Duffey 17 0 11 0 0 28 Alcalá 0 0 9 0 18 27 Garza Jr. 0 19 0 0 11 30 Moran 0 0 0 0 37 37 View full article

@BigHat you're right, I gave Jax a little too much credit...although was comparing it to 15 ER in his previous two starts which was a low bar! Thanks for the read and the kind words!

Thanks! Hard to turn down talking Twins...even in a bad year!

The Twins had some clutch hitting today from an unlikely hero beating the best and hottest team in baseball 6-5. The victory improves the Twins record to 59-77 on the season as they avoided the three game sweep. Read about that and more in today's game recap! Box Score Griffin Jax: 4.2 IP, 6 H, 4 ER, 1 BB, 3 K (55-percent strikes) Homeruns: none Top 3 WPA: Gordon (.364), Colomé (.194), Arraez (.171) Win Probability Chart (via Fangraphs) Jax Bounces Back After Two Abysmal Starts Jax entered today giving up 15 earned runs in his last two starts combined, and was able to have a passable start given his recent struggles. From the start, Jax was benefiting from some near misses starting with the leadoff batter hitting a deep fly ball into the right field corner, another deep flyball to start the second inning, and then a ball off of the bat of Yandy Diaz that had an xBA of .690 to end the second. Regardless, he was able to get through the first two innings unscathed although that would be a sign of things to come for the end of his day. The luck of the near misses through the first two innings were balanced out by three different batted balls, two off the glove of Luis Arraez and one off of Nick Gordon, that would have undoubtedly made for shorter innings and less damage against Jax. Although none of these balls were considered errors, they were plays that gloves of Donaldson and Polanco would likely have vacuumed up for outs. Luckily, the Twins bullpen was most fresh after pitching just one inning on Friday, as Jax only lasted 4 ⅔ innings when the Rays started making consistent hard contact off of the rookie right hander. Coming into today, Jax had given up nine home runs and 11 walks in 27 innings in the month of August. As previously mentioned, there were some close calls today but outside of the homerun to Brandon Lowe he kept the ball in the ballpark and made the Rays earn their bases only giving up one walk. Even on the homerun to Lowe, Glen Perkins had some interesting insight as to how Lowe pulled a low and away breaking ball 365 feet. Clutch Two-Out Rallies Lift the Twins to Victory Luis Arraez started off the game for the Twins getting robbed of a line drive single by Wander Franco in what would foreshadow Luis Patiño’s day against the slumping Twins offense. After a quick first inning, the Twins would score three two-out runs with hitters six thru nine all reaching base, including Willians Astudillo’s first walk since drawing back-to-back walks on June 16th. The Twins would tack on a fourth run in the third inning after aggressive baserunning by Josh Donaldson creating a balk to get to second and taking third on a ball in the dirt. The headsy baserunning would pay off after a bloop two-out single by Jake Cave allowed Donaldson to score easily, giving the Twins a 4-0 lead. The Twins put together another threat in the fourth after an Arraez single and a Buxton double that would have been a run-scoring triple had it stayed in the ballpark. Alas, it was ruled a ground-rule double (bounced off the foul pole and back into play) and the next batter, Jorge Polanco, would hit a line drive to Wander Franco who flipped it to third to double off Arraez. After getting 1-2-3 innings in the fifth and sixth, the bottom of the line up would come through again with Nick Gordon tying the game at five runs apiece with another two-out RBI hit. And that wouldn't even be the end of Nick Gordon's career day. After more aggressive baserunning by Donaldson and with one out in the ninth and runners on 1st and 3rd, Gordon punched a single up the middle to give the Twins the 6-5 lead and ultimately the win. If you were paying attention closely, you realized that five of the six Twins runs were scored with two-outs and Nick Gordon was responsible for half of the runs scored today. Bullpen Usage Chart The Twins made the right call in pulling Griffin Jax but, in what seems like the “Twins Way” this year, the inherited runner was allowed to score when Caleb Thielbar immediately gave up a two-run homerun to Austin Meadows. Thielbar finished the fifth but wasn’t able to finish the sixth after a lead off walk and a comebacker fielder's choice, and was relieved by righty Jorge Alcala. After a first pitch swinging strike by Mike Zunino, he got the backstop to ground into an inning ending double play and would get through the seventh only allowing a double to Franco. Tyler Duffey came on in the eighth and pitched a 1-2-3 thanks to Ryan Jeffers gunning down a would-be base stealer before handing over the save opportunity to Alex Colomé in the ninth. As usual, Colomé would make things very interesting in the ninth but ultimately earned the saved after a 23 pitch inning. TUE WED THU FRI SAT SUN TOT Gibaut 0 24 0 0 47 0 71 Minaya 24 11 0 0 21 0 56 Garza Jr. 17 0 0 8 23 0 48 Colomé 0 0 0 0 11 23 34 Thielbar 26 0 0 0 0 28 54 Alcalá 0 0 0 0 0 15 15 Duffey 16 0 0 0 0 10 26 Coulombe 0 10 0 0 0 0 10 View full article

The Twins fell to the Brewers 6-2 on Sunday missing out on a sweep of their border battle foe. Miguel Sano was cleared for take off again while the rest of the offense went down swinging and Griffin Jax missed his spots. That and more in today's game recap! Box Score Griffin Jax: 5.0 IP, 6 H, 6 ER, 5 K, 3 BB, 65.0% strikes Homeruns: Sano (23) Bottom 3 WPA: Win Probability Chart (via Fangraphs) Griffin Jax Struggles with Control If you’ve followed me long enough, you know how much emphasis I put on pitchers being efficient. Well, unfortunately for Jax he was almost too efficient today throwing 65-percent strikes and 76-percent first pitch strikes, but leaving too many pitches over the middle of the plate. Those six extra-base hits could have easily been up to nine extra-base hits but each of the three starting outfielders made nice running catches to limit the Brewers' damage against Jax, including the ball off the bat of Jackie Bradley Jr which Byron Buxton snagged with ease. If you were listening to the Bally Sports North broadcast, you heard former Twins All-Star reliever Glen Perkins mention Ryan Jeffers glove “drifting” from where he set up due to Jax missing his spots, which is why he got tagged all day. With a wide-open rotation for 2022, Jax will continue to get an opportunity to prove he can stick, but this is now back-to-back starts for Jax where he got absolutely shelled after a string of five solid starts. In today’s game particularly, his pitch movement was on par with where he’s been all season so it’s just a matter of bearing down and hitting the mitt where the catcher sets up. This leaves me a little optimistic that he can rebound the next time he’s on the bump. Sano Moons One while Rest of Offense is Grounded It was a solid day from left-hander Aaron Ashby, but his one mistake was hanging a curveball to Miguel Sano who hit his fourth blast in the last eight games. This was Sano’s 23rd of the season and “only” traveled 420 feet. The rest of the offense was pretty quiet with each of Jorge Polanco, Josh Donaldson, Rob Refsnyder, and Willians Astudillo being the only other players to reach base. In the last twelve plate appearances of the game, the Twins struck out nine times including 1-2-3 in the eighth inning and three straight to end the game. In short, there wasn't ever much from the Twins throughout the entirety of the game. Bullpen Usage Ian Gibaut made his season debut, providing the Twins with three scoreless innings despite not having a clean inning and getting hit hard. Ralph Garza Jr came on in the 9th inning with two strikeouts on 11 pitches and not allowing anyone to reach base. WED THU FRI SAT SUN TOT Albers 0 0 88 0 0 88 Garza Jr. 24 4 0 0 11 39 Coulombe 19 0 20 0 0 39 Thielbar 22 0 0 23 0 45 Duffey 9 0 6 0 0 15 Colomé 20 0 13 13 0 46 Minaya 0 0 0 17 0 17 Gibaut 0 0 0 0 33 33 Alcalá 0 0 12 0 0 12 View full article

LOL. I’m not saying he’s a good shortstop. I’m not saying he’s the solution. As you point, and as I concluded my article, I think he is someone who can fill-in there once in a while. Despite him not being in the lineup tonight, him practicing at shortstop isn’t for ****s and gigs.

284 but only 19 this year. This whole article is based on the premise that we are looking for a one year-ish filler until Royce Lewis is healthy and ready. He’s not a “solution”.

Pass on Simmons, but if the long term plan is to pay a SS then this offseason would be the one to do it.

Thanks! And I agree Polanconis probably the best fit, but I really wonder how much stress the position puts on his ankles. I just don’t see how this team is truly competitive in 2022. They have to fill 4 rotation spots and multiple holes in the bullpen. They’ve had pitching prospects with good 2021 minor league seasons but it’s not like they’re all going to jump to the majors and be successful.

This was addressed and is the premise of the entire article. Because of his injury, he will enter the 2022 season having not played minor league baseball for two years. I can’t imagine he’ll be ready to be the opening day SS.

Long-term I agree, but until Royce Lewis is ready (he hasn’t played minor league baseball for two years) they’ll need to fill the position somehow. With the season Miranda is having, I don’t think we want him to stay in St. Paul until 2024 when Donaldson is no longer under contract. He’s played plenty of innings at SS to fill-in for one season.

For the second consecutive offseason, the Minnesota Twins will be looking for a short-term fix at shortstop as they await Royce Lewis to recover from a torn ACL. Let’s go ahead and look at the free agent, 40-man roster, and non-40-man roster options the Twins will have for the 2022 season. When the Twins signed veteran Andrelton Simmons to a one-year, $10.5MM deal last offseason, it seemed like a perfect fit for a club that needed their top prospect to get an extra year of seasoning under his belt. A torn ACL and an anti-vaxxer later and what seemed like a perfect fit has turned into a complete disaster, and that’s before pointing out that Simmons has been one of the worst hitters in the league this year. Based on the latest Twitter mentions of Simmons, it’s pretty clear that the fans are ready to turn the page, although after not being dealt at the deadline, we’re likely stuck with him as there isn’t a suitable option to take his place at the moment. With Royce Lewis missing two full minor league seasons, he will need to start the year in Wichita or St. Paul and would probably spend the entire season between one of those two spots. Here are the short-term options for the position until he proves he’s ready. 40-man Roster Jorge Polanco - we’re well aware of his recent history with the position, and it’s not pretty. Moreover, I wonder if his 2021 rebound has anything to do with moving to second base. He’s had back-to-back offseasons that required minor ankle surgery but seems to be healthy playing a position that is a little less taxing than shortstop. Based on the season he’s having, I’d hope that Twins don’t push him back to shortstop in 2022, but he also might be the best option currently in the organization. Nick Gordon - after six-plus seasons in the minors, Gordon finally made his Major League debut but didn’t do a great job of taking advantage of the opportunity. In recent years he’s started mixing time in a second, but he does have over 4,500 minor league innings at short. From what we’ve seen so far, he’s not the long-term solution at the position, but he could be an upgrade over Simmons in a season where the Twins likely won’t be competing for a playoff spot. Non-40-man Roster Jose Miranda - nobody saw this coming from Miranda, but he’s burst onto the scene and is having arguably the best season of any minor leaguer. He’s crushing so much so that you have fans clamoring for him to be with the big league club right now. In the long run, he’s the current heir apparent to Josh Donaldson, but he’s almost forcing the Twins hand to add him to the 40-man and see what he can do in 2022. A lot of greats have moved from short to third...Ripken, Rodriguez, Machado...and in 2024 or 2025, maybe Miranda can add his name to that list. Austin Martin - the Twins shiny new prospect has done well since coming over in the José Berríos trade, but Ken Rosenthal reported that the front office views him as more of an outfield prospect. I wouldn’t be surprised to see him get an opportunity in Spring Training next year, but I would be surprised if he were named the everyday shortstop for the big league club. Jermaine Palacios - he’s having a nice little season for AA-Wichita, but I don’t see him being a candidate for this job in 2022. Drew Maggi or JT Riddle - the two minor league veterans are in St. Paul, but like Palacios, I can’t imagine they’ll get much of a look with other, better options to fill in for a year. Free Agents Marcus Semien - he’s having a great season with Toronto after signing a one-year deal last offseason, and entering his age 32-season, I have to imagine he’ll be looking for a multi-year deal. Trevor Story, Corey Seager, Carlos Correa, and Javier Baez - I group these guys because they are the best young shortstops in the game, and all will be looking to cash in. Like Semien, I foresee them wanting a lot of money over multiple years. José Iglesias - if the Twins are going to hit free agency, this might be a good, cheap target. Iglesias has bounced around the league quite a bit with great defense and a passable bat. Andrelton Simmons - LOL. It comes down to the vision for the 2022 season, which I believe to be a rebuild or “retool” year. If that’s the case, it doesn’t make sense to spend in free agency when you have the opportunity to give some of your prospects time at the Major League level. No matter who they go with, they will be downgrading the defense, but that comes with an increase in offense. I think a mixture of Polanco, Gordon, Miranda, and Martin would be an okay choice while they spend money to rebuild their rotation and bullpen. View full article

The Twins beat the Astros and took the four game set to improve to 48-64 on the season. Twins starter, Kenta Maeda, battled through five innings and second basemen Jorge Polanco had himself a day at the plate. That and more in today's recap! 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) 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 View full article