The name of the game was the long ball at Target Field on Tuesday night, with nearly all of the damage on both sides coming via the home run in a 9-1 win for the Twins over the A’s. Eight of the nine runs scored by the Twins came via home runs, while the sole run for Oakland came on a Yonder Alonso home run in the ninth off Twins right-hander Michael Tonkin.
Brian Dozier jumped A’s starter Sonny Gray (0-1) the second time he saw him for a solo home run with two out in the third which started a rally for the Twins. After Gray got Byron Buxton to swing through a 96-mph fastball — his hardest pitch of the night — for strike three for the second out of the inning, he left a 1-0 pitch out over the plate to Dozier, who deposited it into left field to give the Twins a 1-0 lead.
Gray, who had sprinted through the Twins order the first time through with two strikeouts and just one baserunner allowed — a walk to Jason Castro — came unglued fairly quickly after that. Following the home run, Gray walked Max Kepler on four pitches before serving up one of the longest home runs in Target Field history — a majestic blast estimated at 466 feet by Twins PR man Dustin Morse — on the first pitch to Miguel Sano that traveled all the way to the Catch restaurant above the batter’s eye in center field.
That was just the second home run ball to reach Catch — with ByungHo Park hitting the first last season. Gray’s struggles continued into the fourth, as he allowed a solo home run to Castro before limiting the damage the rest of the night. In his first start since coming off the disabled list due to a lat strain, he finished with six innings, four earned runs, four strikeouts and three walks, and was responsible for half of the Twins’ six home runs on the evening.
The six home runs hit by the Twins set a Target Field record, and was the first time the club had hit six since June 9, 1966.
Cesar Valdez was next out of the chute for the A’s, and he allowed the other three home runs hit by the Twins — all in the seventh inning — in his sole inning of work, pushing his season ERA up to an unsightly 9.64. Whatever he was throwing, it wasn’t fooling Twins batters as three balls left the yard — off the bats of Dozier, Buxton and Joe Mauer — and five hits were totaled by the Twins out of their 11 on the night.
Frankie Montas closed out the night for the A’s, and threw some legitimate heat, registering as high as 101 mph on the radar gun at the park, while backing it up with an 87-mph slider to strike out Dozier for the second out of the eighth.
Ervin Santana (5-0) lowered his ERA to 0.66 on the season with six shutout innings, but said after the game that he didn’t have his best fastball command, and it showed early as he threw 21 pitches in the first inning. He recovered to throw nine strikes out of 10 pitches in the second, but ran up a high pitch count the rest of the way, and by the time he gave way to Tyler Duffey in the seventh inning, had thrown 96 pitches (61 strikes) on the night. Duffey and Tonkin went the final three frames, allowing just one earned run — the Alonso homer — with four strikeouts and no walks.
Here’s what we saw from our vantage point:
Even without his greatest stuff, Santana was still tremendous
This marked Santana’s sixth straight quality start to open the season, and opposing batters are now hitting just .120 against him this season. They came in hitting just .115 against him all season. The three walks tied a season-high, but seven strikeouts was just one off his season-best and Brooks Baseball had him with 11 swinging strikes on 96 pitches — a perfectly solid total. Oddly enough, most of them came on his four-seam fastball (six) with just three on the changeup and two on the slider.
Santana sat 92-93 mph with the fastball all night, but did reach back as high as 95.5 mph when he needed it. He was also very complimentary of his mound counterpart in Gray, who all things considered started very hot before cooling off later in the game. “He had a great fastball and kept the breaking ball down,” Santana said of Gray, who was making his first start of the season.
“We had everything working today,” Santana said. “Defense, offense and we had a good game today. It was a bit of a struggle because I didn’t have my fastball command today, but I was able to pitch away with the offspeed and put zeroes on the board.”
Gray was excellent early, but fell off the wagon the second time through the order
Gray got through the order the first time basically unscathed, but Dozier jumped him the second time around and after that he was fairly pedestrian the rest of the way. Gray was on a bit of a pitch count — roughly 90-95 estimated before the game, and he finished at 88 — with eight swinging strikes on 88 pitches for a fairly decent whiff rate, all things considered. His fastball was popping in the mid-90s early before he dialed it way back later in the game. It was as low as 88-89 late, but he found some life with a good 93 mph fastball with arm-side run to strike out Robbie Grossman looking to start the sixth inning.
Brooks had Gray as high as 95.6 mph on his two-seamer and even hotter on his four-seamer (96.7 mph), with both settling in the 93-94 mph range. His slider was really breaking well early in the game, with four of his eight swinging strikes coming on it over the course of the night. The numbers won’t reflect well on Gray’s effort, but there was a lot to like here on Tuesday night.
Jorge Polanco is scuffling a bit at the plate
He was the only starter without a hit on Tuesday night, and is now mired in a 2-for-18 slump that has seen his OPS drop from .736 to .653 in the span of under a week. Still, there was an encouraging sign in his eighth-inning plate appearance, as he fell behind 1-2 against Montas before coaxing a walk. He moved to third on a Danny Santana double down the left field line and scored on the Buxton groundout to cap the scoring for the Twins on the night. It just goes to show that if Polanco can stay grounded within his approach, he should be able to shake slumps before too long while staying productive in ways outside of getting hits.
Dozier started the homer party, and is showing signs of turning things around
It was his sixth career multi-homer game, and he wasted little time welcoming Gray back with a boom. His first homer of the night was no cheapie, and neither was his second. He’s now up to four on the season, and is hitting a respectable .250/.321/.427 out of the leadoff spot after a slow start.
It’s sort of amazing what this offense has been capable when it has rolled at its best so far this season, especially considering the slow start Dozier had gotten off to. The slow start still paled in comparison to last year’s, and maybe this game against the A’s was what he needed to jumpstart the rest of his season.
Sano is a bad, bad man
For the second game in a row, a starting pitcher made Sano look silly the first time around, only to pay later. Kansas City’s Jason Hammel fanned Sano on three pitches in his first plate appearance on Sunday, but Sano got the last laugh with a first-pitch home run the next time he strode to the plate. Gray got Sano to swing through a 94 mph fastball to end the bottom of the first inning, but Sano jumped the first pitch he saw in the third inning and — depending on whose measurement you trust, which was a source of debate in the press box all night — pounded the ball somewhere between 440 and 470 feet deep into the Minneapolis night — while interrupting the dinner of an unsuspecting couple.
The only thing is this, and you can sort of see it in the below video, is that he hit a woman eating dinner in Catch — right in the face, too.
After the game, Sano expressed how sorry he was for hitting the woman, and that he had seen it on the computer when he went back to re-watch the home run. “I saw it hit a girl in the mouth,” Sano said. “I want to say sorry to that girl.”
He also joked that he got jammed a little bit, and would have hit the ball 500 feet if not for that.
Here’s where that woman was sitting:
Sano called the home run a “bombazo,” which translates to “smash hit” in Spanish. The Twins had Sano sign the home run ball for the team’s archives, but let’s hope he also maybe signed one for the woman, too.
Mr. Buxton is turning things around — and quickly
Buxton took good at-bats all night. He struck out in his first time at the plate in the third inning, but after taking a first-pitch strike down the middle, laid off two tough pitches before ultimately swinging through 96 for the second out of the inning. In the fourth, Buxton jumped all over the first pitch he saw from Gray for a lineout to left. In the seventh against Valdez with Eddie Rosario on first, Buxton bluffed a bunt and took two balls before bunting foul. On 2-1, manager Paul Molitor put Rosario in motion as part of a hit-and-run. Valdez threw a changeup that Buxton swung through, with catcher Stephen Vogt nabbing Rosario at second for the first out of the inning. Valdez opted to try go back-to-back with the changeup on 2-2 with Buxton, but the second one hung a bit and Buxton blasted it 414 feet to left-center for his first home run of the season.
Buxton was also responsible for the only run scored in the game that did not come via the home run:
Nobody is going to go crazy over Buxton’s batting line of .153/.256/.222, but it’s not hard to see that he’s taking much, much better at-bats since going on the road trip.
Mauer even got in on the action — and I called it!
With the ball flying out of the yard all night, I felt the need to ask the following question as Mr. Mauer stepped up to the plate:
….and on the third pitch he saw from Valdez, he did just that, hitting his first of the season to left field. Journalists aren’t supposed to be part of the story, but this was kind of cool.
Rosario quietly extended his hitting streak
Rosario went 2-for-3 before being lifted for Danny Santana as a pinch hitter in the eighth, and in the process pushed his season batting line to .282/.307/.376. Statistically, Rosario is still chasing too many pitches out of the zone (44.5 percent via PITCHf/x heading into Tuesday), but he’s making more contact than ever on pitches in the zone (83.9 percent against a career rate of 80.8 percent) and is still drawing good reviews from the coaching staff for his improved zone discipline, so it’s possible he’s about to turn a corner here. Don’t forget, he had a .900-plus OPS to all three fields last year. He also has perhaps the most opposite-field power we’ve seen from a Twins outfielder since Jacque Jones.
According to the game notes, Rosario is hitting .404 during the hitting streak (19-for-47).
Montas threw absolute gas for the A’s
Brooks Baseball had Montas as high as 101.7 mph on his four-seam fastball, with four of his five swinging strikes on the night coming on it. The other came on an obscene slider that he used to strike Dozier out with. The slider averaged a ridiculous 88.8 mph, with the one that got Dozier registering 87 mph on the stadium gun. It’s anybody’s guess if Montas knows where it’s going — career walk rate of 4.3 per nine innings — but the stuff is 100 percent legit. He’s done a better job of commanding the strike zone so far this season, too (3.2 BB/9 heading into Tuesday).
Roster move
The Twins sent reliever Buddy Boshers back to Triple-A Rochester following the game. They’ll make a corresponding move prior to Wednesday’s game, but all signs indicate they’ll activate starting pitcher Hector Santiago from the bereavement list, and he’ll make his scheduled start that evening.
Rest in Peace, Sam Mele
Mele passed away at the age of 95 on Monday night. He was the Twins’ second-ever manager, holding the reins from 1961-67 with a record of 533-431 over that time, and led the pennant-winning 1965 Twins to a loss in the World Series against Sandy Koufax and the Los Angeles Dodgers. “The Twins are deeply saddened by the loss of Sam Mele,” the team said in an official statement. “The former skipper was an important figure in Twins baseball history. The beloved Mele not only led the 1965 Twins to the American League pennant, but also helped establish the importance of Major League Baseball across the Upper Midwest.”
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Notes and Quotes
- Nice! The Twins have won six of their last nine games. Meanwhile, the A’s have dropped seven of their last eight.
- The three home runs in the seventh inning — Buxton, Dozier and Mauer — was the first time the team had done so since June 26, 2016 and the first back-to-back home runs since Rosario and Dozier did so on Aug. 13 last season.
- Sano — the AL Player of the Week last week — homered for the fourth time in the last five games. He’s hitting an incredible .317/.446/.707 on the season.
- Reminder: Sunday’s pitching matchup features two of the finest hurlers in the AL this year in Boston’s Chris Sale and Minnesota’s Ervin Santana. That game will close the current homestand.
- Santana on his level of satisfaction with a 0.66 ERA, even after not having his best stuff on Tuesday night: “I feel great. Especially the way we’ve been handling batting and defense. Our teammates did their job today. That’s good to know that when you don’t have your best stuff, our players will back you up and do their job. That’s amazing for us.”
- Santana on if leading MLB in ERA means anything to him: “It means a lot. I don’t think about it though; I just go out there and put zeroes on the board.”
- Santana on if he had trouble commanding his fastball in the bullpen: “Yeah. It was everywhere. But I just don’t try to think too much, and not think about that.”
- Sano on the total team effort Tuesday night: “It was a big game tonight. The game is fun for us. Right now we all have one goal and it’s to win the game and to play hard. The team did a great job today. Santana did a great job too. He pitched really good. The team is playing so good now.”
- Buxton on where he’s at now versus the beginning of the season: “I’m way more relaxed than the beginning of the season. I think that’s a big part of my teammates still believing in me and me going up there and just trusting the process and believing in myself to go back to doing what I was doing and letting the ball travel.
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