For the first eight innings, nothing felt particularly historic about the Minnesota Twins taking on the Boston Red Sox. Both teams came in with relatively similar records with pitchers who appeared to be heading in separate directions. Phil Hughes has turned into a grizzled veteran this year at the age of 30 following major arm issues, while the Red Sox started an upstart lefty named Eduardo Rodriguez who boasts not only good heat, but a stellar changeup and excellent slider.
If it looked like a mismatch, it didn’t really end up being one. The Twins scratched across a couple runs thanks to a hit-by-pitch followed by a wind-blown Miguel Sano triple and then a Robbie Grossman single poked through a drawn-in infield in the first inning. Then, the prolific Twins offense — which came in sixth in baseball with a collective 106 wRC+ — went quiet for the next five innings before pushing across another run in the seventh on a Joe Mauer single up the middle. Again, a triple — this time by Eddie Rosario — played a big part in the run scoring, which gave the Twins a 3-1 lead.
To backtrack a bit, the Red Sox scored their first run in the third inning, as super-rookie Andrew Benintendi clocked a Hughes changeup onto the berm in center to cut the Twins lead in half at the time.
Flash forward to the ninth inning, as Brandon Kintzler entered with a two-run lead but failed to protect it. But while the Red Sox managed to score a pair of runs to knot the game at three, it all happened while Kintzler did what he does — that is, induce grounders. Mitch Moreland reached to open the inning on a groundball through the shift. Josh Rutledge followed with a grounder to the backhand side of Jorge Polanco that the young infielder could not corral, and probably would not have had a play on anyway. Jackie Bradley Jr. followed by failing to drop down a bunt — the Red Sox are the only team in baseball yet to have done this all season — but ultimately did the job with a grounder deep in the hole to second. Both runs came home on a single over the third base bag by pinch hitter Chris Young — yet another grounder — before Kintzler bore down to get Dustin Pedroia and Benintendi — easily the two most threatening Sox batters to step to the plate that inning — out.
Oddly enough, those last two Kintzler outs came on balls hit in the air. Baseball is a strange game.
Anyway, that set the stage for ninth-inning heroics, and the Twins did not fail to deliver. Red Sox lefty Robby Scott retired Rosario on a grounder to first with Ehire Adrianza on-deck to pinch hit for Brian Dozier — who was lifted from the game due to an ankle injury suffered in the sixth inning. With Adrianza primed to hit for Dozier — but, it should be noted, never announced as the batter — Red Sox manager John Farrell opted to go to righty Matt Barnes rather than closer Craig Kimbrel, who had warmed, though it was unclear how ready he ever was. Kennys Vargas swapped in for Adrianza during the pitching change, only to follow up Rosario’s grounder to first with one of his own. With Sano waiting on-deck, Mauer stepped up to the plate, and by manager Paul Molitor’s reckoning, was simply looking to keep the inning alive and keep the line moving.
He did more than that.
After taking three pitches for a 1-2 count, Mauer squared up a 96-mph fastball above the belt and throttled a home run into the bullpen, as jubilant Twins relievers leapt into the air to celebrate their first walkoff win of the season — by a 4-3 final score — and most importantly, the first walkoff home run of Mauer’s career. That is, one that has spanned some 14 seasons and more than 1,600 career games.
A fired-up Mauer pumped his fist as he rounded first base, was doused with the cooler as he touched home plate and was picked up in a fireman’s carry by Sano as teammates celebrated to end what wound up being a pretty wild night.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PIeOhLUptwg
Here’s what we saw from our vantage point:
Hughes pitched pretty dang well
The continued resurgence of Hughes as as junkballer never fails to fascinate, as he came at the Red Sox with at least 13 instances of four different pitches. He threw plenty of four-seam fastballs — Brooks Baseball had him averaging 90.9 mph with a high of 92.6 on 33 pitches — but he also mixed in 29 knucklecurves, 23 cutters and 13 changeups on a night when he really had the Red Sox off balance. Despite getting only four swinging strikes, Hughes went a season-high 6.2 innings with six hits, just one earned run and four strikeouts against two walks. It lowered his ERA to 4.32 for the season, and showed that he’s evolved to a point where he can shut down a pretty solid offense in his current form. As the fastball continues to nudge up, it should only help.
For all the tweets fired off about Kintzler’s blown save, he was mostly BABIP’d to death
None of the three balls that went for hits against Kintzler were particularly well struck, while the hardest-hit ball — at least by my estimation — that inning was the out off the bat of Pedroia for out No. 2. But those are the pitfalls of having a closer that relies on balls in play as opposed to strikeouts. Bringing in Kintzler to put out fires makes sense, but the issues stem from when he starts those fires himself. As you might expect, advanced statistics are not kind to Kintzler, who got the “win” — more on that another day — but saw his ERA jump up to 2.70. His FIP, on the other hand? A panic-inducing 4.47. The heat probably isn’t turning up on Kintzler at this point, but it also helps that Ryan Pressly and Matt Belisle don’t have the prettiest numbers right now, either.
This wasn’t the first time a Twins hitter has walked Barnes off
Remember this from last year?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kd_hEwrZzlU
Just about 11 months ago, Max Kepler’s first big-league home run came off Barnes to give the Twins a 7-4 win. Those who do not remember history are doomed to repeat it. Or something to that effect.
How does any left-handed hitter ever hit Scott?
Here’s some footage of Scott facing the Yankees last season:
That’s basically like a lefty having to hit against a pitcher throwing from second base. Scott came in with a career ERA of 0.82 in 11 MLB innings, while left-handed hitters had batted a collective .182/.182/.182 against him overall (4-for-22, no extra-base hits or walks). He made Kepler and Jason Castro look silly and also got a grounder off the bat of Rosario, who actually had a fairly good idea by trying to bunt for a hit to open the ninth inning, to no avail.
Sano hit (another!) triple
After the game, Molitor said he figured that a ball like this off the bat of most players would have wound up as a popout to the second baseman. Sano himself said he thought the ball was foul. Apparently so too did play-by-play broadcaster Dick Bremer. But the ball not only stayed fair, but drifted and ultimately hit the wall and caromed back toward the infield. Mauer streaked home from first, with Sano checking in at third for his second triple of the season. The winds swirled at the park for the bulk of the night after tremendous weather at first pitch — 77 degrees, 13 mph winds — and it showed on this play, specifically.
Sano said after the game that he sees more triples in his future. “I think I even had seven one season,” he noted, suggesting maybe he’s faster than one might expect from such a big man.
The beat goes on for Rosario, who is now on a 15-game hitting streak
It was another solid two-hit game for Rosario, who is up to .302/.330/.458 on the season and extended his hitting streak that now trails just Mike Trout (16 games entering play Friday) for the longest in MLB. It’s the longest streak for a Twin since Dozier’s 24-game streak last season. Rosario is hitting .414 during the streak. His triple in the seventh inning was extremely impressive. Rodriguez fell behind 2-0 to Rosario, but then got him to swing through a slider for strike one. After Rosario took ball three, he threw another slider for strike two. On the full count pitch, Rodriguez again went to the slider, and Rosario pasted it into the right-center gap for his first triple of the season and 18th of his career.
READ: A certain handsome Zone Coverage writer says Rosario could be a breakout candidate
After the game, Rosario said he was dialed in on the slider. He agreed that in the back of his mind, he thought a changeup could be coming — Rodriguez came in with a better than 20 percent whiff rate on that pitch — but also that he was really amped up to see another slider, and did not miss it.
Mauer basically told the haters to suck it — if just for one day
You can’t swing a dead cat on social media without finding someone griping about Mauer’s contract. Look, nobody is calling him the Mauer of old. You know, the guy who won batting titles and basically re-drew the lines of what we expected offensively from catchers. He’s clearly not been good this year and hasn’t been particularly impressive since the concussion. But for one fleeting night, even the most mealy-mouthed of haters had to sit down and take their medicine when Mauer pasted that letter-high fastball into the bullpen.
Make no mistake, they’ll be at it again tomorrow. Some of them were even at it tonight. But where’s the fun here? I mean seriously, sports are already pointless enough. Why strip the fun out of it, too, especially when the team is winning? Those people seem to have a lot of sadness in their lives.
Injury Updates
Molitor said Dozier was able to get his ankle loose enough after stumbling on a possible double-play ball in the sixth inning to stay in the game at that time, but as the night went on he went to the manager and suggested he be lifted for a hitter. He’s day-to-day. Molitor also said after the game that Byron Buxton (head) was not available. Both will be reevaluated tomorrow prior to a 1:10 p.m. first pitch.
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Notes and Quotes
- The Twins have won eight of their last 12 games.
- This was the Twins’ first walkoff win of the season.
- The Twins have won five straight series openers, per the game notes.
- This marked Mauer’s fourth career walkoff — three hits and one walk.
- Robbie Grossman has reached base safely in 17 of his last 18 starts, also per the game notes.
- The Twins are 6-2 in the last eight games against the Red Sox at Target Field.
- Hughes on his confidence level: “It’s pretty good. It’s a good lineup over there and I felt like I was able to throw all my pitches for strikes and mix it up pretty well and give us a shot. Unfortunately they scored a couple runs in the ninth, but it’s a big win for us, especially after yesterday.”
- Hughes on the tough sixth inning: “I just knew that you’re going to have times like that in every game where you have to bear down and make some pitches with guys on. We decided to intentionally walk Moreland, and I was able to make a good pitch with the curve and get a popup. The curve was a big pitch for me tonight, and I went to it a lot, and fortunately it got me out of that situation.”
- Hughes on working ahead: “First pitch strikes and I just didn’t want to throw it over the plate necessarily. But I was able to hit some spots and get ahead in the count to a lot of these guys. I was also able to get some quick-count outs, which helped my pitch count later down the line.”
- Mauer on if he went up trying for a home run: “No, I didn’t. I just tried to stay short and get a good pitch and try not to do too much. I made good contact, and it was good.”
- Mauer on if he knew it was gone: “I knew it had a chance. I just was hoping it’d go over and it did. It was pretty good.”
- Mauer on where he perceived that last pitch to be: “It was maybe top of the zone or a bit higher. He threw me a pretty good breaking ball before that, but I didn’t want to get off the heater in that situation — because he’s got a good one — and I was able to get the barrel on it. It was pretty good.”
Listen to Brandon on Midwest Swing
