Twins

5/4 GAME NOTES: Gibson Sent to Triple-A After A's Dump Twins, 8-5

The old Minnesotan adage is “it could be worse,” and those words rang true at Target Field as the Twins fell 8-5 to the Oakland A’s on Thursday afternoon. Even as the pitching staff came completely unraveled, the game came down to a backyard scenario that we’ve all played out in younger days.

Bases loaded.
Two outs.
You — or in this case, Miguel Sano — represent the tying run.

Sano worked a 3-0 count against A’s closer Santiago Casilla (save, 5) — who came into the game allowing just a .129 batting average — and was given the green light. From that point on, Casilla — who had struggled to throw strikes all inning long — fired in three straight strikes, going swing, foul and swing to retire Sano and the Twins on a breezy, but pretty much perfect day.

For his inning of work, Casilla threw just 14 strikes on 29 pitches.

The strikeout was Sano’s fourth of the game, as he accounted for one-third of the Twins’ 12 whiffs on the day. That also marked a season-high for the A’s.

The A’s pitching staff wasn’t the only one setting records on Thursday, however. On the Twins side, it was a dubious record as Kyle Gibson (0-4) and friends issued eight walks on the day to match a season-high. Gibson lasted just four innings, pushing his season ERA to 8.20 and punching his ticket to Triple-A — a level he has not pitched at since Aug. 30, 2013, rehab assignments notwithstanding.

This is where the “it could have been worse” comes into play: the Twins were in the game until the last pitch despite allowing 22 baserunners on the day. Not only did the A’s push across eight runs, but they also stranded 13 runners as the team was a collective 3-of-14 with runners in scoring position. Twins pitchers wriggled out of more jams than might be expected when looking at a box score that reveals eight runs allowed on the day.

Jharel Cotton (3-3) was solid on the afternoon for the A’s as well, as the rookie right-hander allowed just three hits — including second-inning home runs to Eddie Rosario and Danny Santana — with a career-high nine strikeouts and three walks. Cotton came in having allowed just one home run all season — to Seattle’s Robinson Cano — before the Twins got him twice in the second. Still, Cotton had an absurd 17 swinging strikes on the afternoon in 97 pitches, something we’ll touch on more in a bit. The trio of Ryan Dull, Frankie Montas and Ryan Madson provided the bridge to Casilla, combining for two strikeouts and three hits over two innings, with Montas allowing a two-run home run to Eduardo Escobar in the eighth which allowed the Twins back to within striking distance.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6tV0udRpOFk

Here’s what we saw from our vantage point:

Gibson just didn’t have it, and it was evident early

Gibson came into the game throwing first-pitch strikes just 50.5 percent of the time — 10 percent below the league average — and opened the game by falling behind four of the five hitters he saw in the first inning. That part of his game got better as things went along — he got first-pitch strikes on 13-of-17 the rest of the way — but frankly, nothing else did. Everything Gibson threw was peppered pretty good, as he got just five swinging strikes on the afternoon, one each on his four- and two-seam fastballs, changeup, slider and curve. An astute Twitter follower pointed out that Gibson hardly threw any breaking balls, and that stood true as he threw just 12 overall — five sliders and seven curves. That comes out to a breaking ball just 15.2 percent of the time, or about half the rate he had been throwing them all season (32.8 percent) coming into Thursday.

It’d be easy to say he got away from the breaking ball because he was behind in counts, but at the same time, after the first inning he started most batters with strike one. There has to be something else at play here.

“This was never in the back of my mind or front of my mind or whatever,” Gibson said about being sent back to Rochester. “But in talking to (Molitor), I don’t know that I’ve had a more frustrating stretch that I can even remember. I completely understand where they’re coming from and that they need to make a change. I have things I need to work on, and it’s a whole lot easier to work on those things at Triple-A than it is here when you’re trying to win games and get big league hitters out.”

It wasn’t a good day for Twins pitchers overall, though, and that wasn’t just limited to Gibson. Michael Tonkin was the only pitcher of the five used by the Twins to not allow a run, and the A’s got their leadoff batter on base in seven of the first eight innings. That’s just not a recipe for success.    

Gibson was sent to Triple-A Rochester after the game, and the Twins will make a corresponding roster move before Friday’s game. They may want to get a pitcher up — it could be Mason Melotakis or perhaps Buddy Boshers if the Twins need to use the DL for anyone — but another option could be Ehire Adrianza, the utility player who is nearing the end of his rehab stint with Rochester and could provide insurance at third base if Sano loses his appeal and is suspended on Friday or if Byron Buxton needs a day or two to recover after numerous collisions with the outfield wall on Thursday.

For what it’s worth, Adrianza is 0 for his last 12 with the Red Wings.

Rosario continues to put together nice plate appearances

Rosario went 1-for-3 with a home run to extend his hitting streak, but perhaps his most impressive plate appearance in a while came with one out in the fourth inning. Rosario went up in the count 3-1, saw eight pitches and ultimately walked for the first time during his entire hitting streak. He’s now hitting a solid .293/.323/.424 on the season. That’s good not only in isolation, but even more so when considering the struggles he went through to start the year. Rosario was hitting under the Mendoza Line as recently as April 17, and had an OPS under .600 until April 23.  

We saw the good and bad of Santana at the plate

Danny absolutely throttled the second pitch of the day he saw from Cotton for a mammoth home run off the facing of the second deck in right-center. Next time up, Santana had an ugly swing on strike two and an even worse one on a ball in the dirt for strike three. In his third trip to the plate, Santana bluffed a bunt before dropping a perfect drag bunt for a single in an otherwise uneventful seventh inning against Dull. For the day, Santana went 2-for-4, but he’s still hitting a meager .200/.231/.360 for the season.    

He too could be on the roster ropes with decision day looming on Adrianza. Adrianza has to be activated from the DL by May 10, and is out of options — as is Santana.

It was not the greatest of days for Buxton

Between having trouble tracking fly balls — perhaps due to the sun on an unusually bright day — and running into the fence on more than one occasion, Buxton was just not at his best defensively. The play that sealed his day was a nice running catch at the wall in left-center off the bat of Matt Joyce, but he smashed into the fence and was down for a bit. Buxton left the game after that, and underwent initial concussion protocol testing — which he passed.

The Twins announced that he’ll be reevaluated on Friday.

A’s third baseman Ryon Healy had what we’d call an…..eventful day

Healy started his day by snapping a personal 0-for-9 streak with a bunt single. He followed that up by taking Craig Breslow deep in the seventh inning. Then, in the eighth, Healy was thrown out after arguing strikes and balls when home plate umpire Mike Muchlinski rang him up on a nasty 2-2 curveball from Ryan Pressly.  

Here’s where Brooks Baseball had that pitch to Healy that he was rung up on.

(image courtesy of Brooks Baseball)

That’s a damn fine curveball.

Cotton was really, really good, and it was more than just the changeup

Cotton, who came over from the Dodgers in the Josh Reddick-Rich Hill deal last year, set a career-high with nine strikeouts and had the Twins eating out of his hands for most of the afternoon. The changeup came as advertised — four whiffs for a 16 percent rate — but he also got an absurd 11 swinging strikes on his four-seam fastball (20.8 percent). Either that means he had the Twins guessing up there due to a consistent arm slot between the two offerings, or the Twins went up guessing changeup and he picked up on it rather quickly. The home run to Rosario came on a changeup, while Santana’s came on a fastball as did Chris Gimenez’s run-scoring single where no RBI was awarded due to a fielding error by centerfielder Jaff Decker. According to PITCHf/x, Rosario’s home run is the first that Cotton has allowed on a changeup in his MLB career. Granted, that’s just over 60 innings, but it’s still noteworthy.

Remember that scene at the end of “Tommy Boy?”

In a word: DAMN. This came just one inning after Healy was ejected.

Reminder: get your tickets for Sunday

With Chris Sale avoiding a suspension, the planets have aligned for a tremendous pitching matchup with him taking on Twins ace Ervin Santana.

Notes and Quotes

  • MLB.com’s Rhett Bollinger reported that reliever Justin Haley (biceps) is headed out to Rochester on a rehab assignment to start a rehab assignment on Friday. Thursday’s game was rained out.
  • The Twins are 7-4 in their last 11 games, and had a four-game winning streak — their second of the season — snapped in the loss.
  • Santana’s home run was his first since June 16, 2016, while Escobar has homered twice in his last three games. Escobar is hitting a stellar .262/.340/.524 in part-time duty this season. Look for him to start at third base if Sano is suspended on Friday.   
  • Gibson on what he needs to work on at Rochester: “A little bit of everything. I had a good talk with Falvey and Levine just about getting a plan together about whether it’s attacking the zone or whatever it is. There’s room for improvement when you have a six-start stretch where you’re scuffling like this. I’ll go back and look at a lot of it and try to improve in each area, really. You can’t pick just one area that causes you to throw like this for six starts. Getting ahead of guys, attacking guys with two strikes, using all my pitches in the zone as well.”
  • Gibson on his level of frustration during games: “In-game it’s not as frustrating as it is afterward when you look back and watch the video and see certain pitches here and there that you should have executed better. It’s always frustrating giving up runs. My goal out there is to put up a zero every inning and give the offense a chance to win the game. Unfortunately, I haven’t done that.”
  • Sano on coming up short at the end: “We battled. We tried. We didn’t get there. Now we have to move on and get ready for tomorrow.”
  • Sano on if there’s consolation in coming close at the end: “I had an opportunity to bring some runs home and obviously I wasn’t able to do that. What can you do? He did a good job of throwing pitches and I just couldn’t connect on any of them.”
  • Sano on winning three straight series and the confidence the team has afterward: “It’s good. Now Boston is coming in and we’ll try win that series as well. They’re a good team, but now it’s a matter of trying to keep winning. The game is not over, we’ll continue playing.”
  • Sano on what he was looking for 3-0: “I tried to see if they’d throw me a fastball down the middle. They threw me cutters inside and never made a mistake in the middle.”
  • Sano on if it’s hard to stay calm in that situation: “I could have changed the outcome of the game with that 3-0 swing, but I couldn’t get to it. But it’s nothing. We’ll keep moving forward and keep winning.”

Listen to Brandon on Midwest Swing
subscribe on itunescold omaha podcast network

Twins
3 Under-the-Radar Twins Prospects to Keep An Eye On in 2024
By Cody Schoenmann - Mar 28, 2024
Twins
Can Pablo Lopez Cement His Twins Legacy In 2024?
By CJ Baumgartner - Mar 27, 2024
Twins

Minnesota’s Biggest Concern Will Be Stress-Tested Immediately

Bailey Ober did everything right last spring. He didn’t give up any runs, hits, or baserunners in the Grapefruit League. Still, the Minnesota Twins had him start […]

Continue Reading