The Tampa Bay Rays stayed true to form in their 5-2 win over the Minnesota Twin at Target Field on Friday night, as all five runs scored via home runs from Logan Morrison, Kevin Kiermaier and Steven Souza Jr.
The Rays came into the game second in the AL with 68 home runs, and it showed, as they got single long balls off starter Hector Santiago and relievers Ryan Pressly and Matt Belisle to move above .500 at 26-25 on the season. The loss snapped a four-game winning streak for the first-place Twins, who fell to 25-19 and oddly enough, 11-14 at Target Field this season.
Rays starter Chris Archer was dazzling, as he tossed 7.2 innings of two-run ball with 11 strikeouts and a walk. He scattered five hits in the outing, but allowed just one — a two-out rocket off both the mound and shortstop Tim Beckham off the bat of Jason Castro that went for a single in the third — baserunner until Joe Mauer opened the seventh inning with a single up the box.
The Twins pushed across single runs in the seventh and eighth innings, and even brought the tying run to the plate in the eighth in the form of Miguel Sano, who struck out for the fourth time in the game to continue his prolonged cold snap. Otherwise, it was a meager offensive performance for a Twins offense that had been red-hot in the month of May.
Santiago debuted a new pitching motion — which we’ll break down more in a bit — and it came with fairly good results, as he went 5.1 innings while allowing three earned runs with six strikeouts and two walks. He ran his pitch count up relatively quickly as he hit 101 pitches on the night, but he threw 68 strikes. Pressly relieved Santiago in the sixth with Morrison on first after drawing an eight-pitch walk, and the second batter he faced (Kiermaier) poked a two-run fence scraper to left to give the Rays a 4-0 lead.
Morrison’s run represents the first inherited runner Pressly allowed to score all season, though his ERA still stands at an ugly 6.61 with Kiermaier run going on his ledger. The final home run of the night came off the bat of Souza, as Belisle’s ERA swelled to 8.22 as he endures some early season struggles.
Here’s what we saw from our vantage point:
Archer had the Twins eating out of the palm of his hands all night
Brooks Baseball has Archer down for 16 swinging strikes on the night in 106 pitches, with 11 coming on the slider. All three of Sano’s strikeouts against Archer came on the slider — two swinging, one looking — and Brian Dozier also went down swinging in his first two at-bats against the slider.
When Archer needed to, he also reached back for more on his fastball. He reached as high as 98 on the stadium gun on multiple occasions against Sano, and even did so in the eighth inning to strike out Byron Buxton as well. Brooks had him as high as 98.8 mph on his fastball, but even the slider was coming in hot at 90.1 mph on average and as high as 93.2.
Only two Twins in the starting lineup didn’t strike out on the evening: Max Kepler and Eddie Rosario. They were still a combined 1-for-8. It was just one of those nights.
Santiago worked exclusively from the stretch, and despite some hiccups looked pretty good doing so
Santiago said after the game that he hadn’t thrown from the stretch with the bases empty since working as a reliever in college, but with his stuff scuffling and his command waning, Santiago said he wanted to simplify his delivery. At times he was uncomfortable with it on Friday night, as he’d start toward home before catcher Jason Castro was even set up to receive the pitch, but ultimately, Santiago said, he felt his results were pretty good. At times, he was even quick-pitching hitters unintentionally, he said, which didn’t necessarily sit well with opposing batters.
“When I was a reliever in college,” Santiago said of when he last worked from the stretch solely. “Coach said if I could pitch from the stretch, I could have a pretty good career when you get those guys to not score. But it’s been a long time, and I think you could see it. In the innings and stuff like that. Just…it was like inconsistent if it was a pause or a lift. I told Beckham in like the fifth that it was new to me and something I’m working on. I know you guys are mad over there because I’m quick pitching and all kinds of stuff, but hitting is all about timing. If I can throw that timing off and be effective in the zone and throw off timing, that’s a plus for me.”
It’s not hard to see the effects it had on his command, though. He threw first-pitch strikes to 17-of-22 hitters and threw 68 of 101 pitches for strikes. That’s a 77.3 percent first-pitch strike rate on the night (54.4 percent on the season) and a 67.3 percent rate of strikes thrown overall (61.5 percent entering Friday’s start). Santiago will continue to tinker with it, but for now it sounds like it’s more than just a one-start fix.
Santiago nearly went strikeout-for-strikeout with Archer early, fanning two batters in the first and second innings and six overall through his first four innings of work. It looked as though the feel for Santiago’s changeup had returned after a few weeks away, and overall he had nine swinging strikes on the night. On 101 pitches that’s about average, but it’s still a big step up for him compared to earlier in the month.
“I think from the stretch this year I’ve done really well,” Santiago said after the game. “You know, not too many walks. Tonight there were two of them, but some of them were good pitches where I wasn’t going to give into guys.”
A half-inning before hitting his home run, Souza had an…uh…interesting play in the outfield
With Mauer standing on third after a pair of wild pitches from Archer, Vargas stepped up to the plate and served a pitch into right-center to bring Mauer home. We can’t exactly be sure what was going on in Souza’s mind, but he dove for a ball that he literally had no chance to catch.
No seriously, Statcast says he had no chance to actually catch it.
Sano is ice cold at the plate right now
He struck out all four times he came to the plate — including swinging through three cutters from Rays closer Alex Colome in the eighth inning that each came in at 90 mph or slower — and is now 0 for his last 13 with 10 strikeouts since homering off Orioles reliever Stefan Crichton in the ninth inning of Monday’s 14-7 win. He has also struck out in seven straight plate appearances. He’s still hitting an absurd .292/.408/.584 for the season, so this is just a mini-slump at this point.
So too is Rosario, who snapped an 0-for-16 funk by hitting a double off the fence
Rosario crushed the second pitch he saw from Archer in the eighth inning off the fence in left, and nearly had a triple before wisely pulling up since his run didn’t really matter in what was at that point a 5-1 game.
Rays left fielder Corey Dickerson wasn’t exactly close to catching that ball, either:
Byron Buxton made some very nice defensive plays on the evening
In the third inning, a Derek Norris fly ball took Buxton all the way to the fence in center.
In the fifth, Rays second baseman Daniel Robertson hit a jam shot to left-center that Buxton raced over to make a smooth play on. With Buxton’s bat mostly dormant — he’s hitting just .184/.271/.272 — he’s still doing his part to make things happen defensively.
Also, maybe it’s just me, but this seemed like an odd defensive alignment for the Rays against him in the sixth inning. Am I totally off base here?
Roster move
The Twins designated pitcher Adam Wilk for assignment following Friday’s game to make room for Saturday starter Adalberto Mejia. The Twins have 10 days to trade, release or put Wilk on waivers for the purpose of outrighting him to the minors. Since Wilk has not been outrighted yet in his career, he can not reject the assignment if he clears waivers, which he didn’t when the Mets put him through earlier this season. The 29-year-old lefty has posted a 6.75 ERA this season between the Mets and Twins, with a 3.86 mark in seven innings (two games) since joining the Twins.
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Notes and Quotes
- The loss dropped the Twins to 11-5 in series openers this season. The Twins are 6-2 over their last eight games.
- Vargas (2-for-4) extended his hitting streak to six games with a single to right in the seventh inning.
- Dozier (1-for-4) also extended his personal hitting streak to seven games with an eighth inning single to score Rosario from second base.
- The Twins ended a 23-inning scoreless streak for Rays pitchers in the seventh inning on Vargas’ jam-shot single to right, which plated Mauer.
- Souza has three home runs in his last three games.
- Santiago on how he handled the Rays: “I think it was 17 or 18 of 22 batters with first-pitch strikes. That’s the goal. You want to put pressure on those guys. I think I had three hitters tonight who ruined my pitch count. Longoria in the first was seven or eight pitches. Robertson in the third or fourth and was eight or nine. All around though, I felt good. The command was there. I threw all my pitches for strikes. It was a good mix tonight. I can do some different things from the stretch, like a quick pitch or a slide step or some different things.”
- Santiago on how his changeup was on Friday night: “For sure (it was better). After the last two weeks….early in the year, my changeup was really good. For two weeks I lost it a little bit there, probably trying to do too much. I went back to a four-seam and a straight changeup a bit more tonight.”
- Vargas on what it’s like to try hit Archer: “It’s really tough. You have to have a plan with him for sure. You just try to eliminate his nasty pitches and try make him elevate the ball and get good contact. His fastball worked pretty good tonight and so did his breaking pitch. He was great tonight.”
- Vargas on the slider and hoping it isn’t in the zone: “Like I said, you have to have a plan. If you’re looking for the offspeed, you’ve got to be ready for when he throws it to make contact. If you’re looking for a fastball, you can’t miss it.”
- Vargas on Archer having extra velocity in the tank: “Yeah, that’s his plan. He tries to stay around 95-97, but when he has to he’ll go up to 98. He’s really tough on hitters, because when he attacks, you don’t expect he’ll get that speed on the ball.”
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