There’s not much to be said after a 15-4 defeat, so predictably the Minnesota Twins locker room was quite quiet after a second-straight loss to the Boston Red Sox.
Manager Paul Molitor was composed after the loss, stating that it was a close ballgame until Oswaldo Arcia dropped a catchable fly ball in right field after calling off Byron Buxton in the eighth inning with the Twins down 5-4.
“It was a good game up to that point. We overcame a rough start for Gibby in his return, found a way to get back into the game, and then we missed a play,” he said.
“We’ve been having trouble on the defensive side, not getting outs that we should get, and good teams capitalize on those mistakes. It didn’t take long for Bogaerts to hit the homer after we dropped the fly ball.
“There was some other plays there at the end that didn’t go particularly well. But that was the biggest play of the game, I thought.”
Arcia, for his part, faced the media and appeared distraught over the mishap.
Gibson, who gave up four runs in the first inning, saw his team climb back by scoring three runs in the fourth and one in the fifth, only to give up a run in the sixth and then five in the eighth and ninth.
“I don’t think he was really nervous,” Molitor said of Gibson, who offered insight into his outing after the loss. “They were swinging the bats well, he had a chance to get off the field there with one, and tried to come in on Bradley, and turns it into a four-run game right out of the shoot.
“I think he just kind of tried to compose himself, he took the line drive off the forearm there, which third consecutive day we’ve had to deal with that. But he said that he was fine, he went out there and he competed after that.”
J.T. Chargois made his debut today, and it did not go well. He gave up three hits and five earned runs while walking two and only recorded two outs.
He was not available to the media today, but it’s not hard to guess how he was feeling after his outing.
“I haven’t talked to him about it. I think when guys tattoo your best heater, it probably can be a little bit disruptive in terms of any calmness you might have brought out there to start the inning,” said Molitor of Chargois, who was touching 97-98 mph on the radar.
“Bogaerts, first pitch … his name comes up a lot, doesn’t it? And then [David] Ortiz had a good fastball away. And then he just started trying to use his change-up more, the slider really wasn’t very effective today.
“I’m sure that, for a first outing, hopefully it was a learning experience.”
Outside of that, there weren’t too many people around. Understandable after the team suffered this rout a day after falling 8-1 in Ortiz’s return to the Twin Cities.
Twitter, on the other hand, had a lot to say about the loss.
One man evoked a famous quote from the team’s 8-20 start:
Another used a pop culture reference:
https://twitter.com/Rogerskolney/status/741750629421309952
And, finally, Aaron Gleeman broke out the calculator:
