It’s overcast and rather rainy as the Minnesota Twins prepare to face the Seattle Mariners for the second time in less than a week. This time, the location will be Target Field, as the Twins seek a better outcome than they saw at Safeco Field over the weekend, dropping two of three to the M’s in Seattle — including one in walk-off fashion.
As of this writing, it’s 69 degrees with 85 percent humidity. It looks, however, like further rain will subside before game time, and they should be able to get this one in unimpeded.
Since that series, the Twins went on to take two out of three from the Giants in San Francisco, while the Mariners spent their time dressing up as Twins (seriously, see below) and dropping two of three to the surging Blue Jays.
It’ll be lefty Adalberto Mejia going for the Twins against seasoned vet Yovani Gallardo for the Mariners. If that seems familiar, it was the same matchup last Wednesday in Seattle, when Mike Zunino hit a walk-off two-run home run to send fans home happy that night. Christian Bergman will also face Kyle Gibson for the second start in a row on Tuesday, with Sam Gaviglio and Ervin Santana meeting for the first time on Wednesday evening. Thursday afternoon is the series finale, with Ariel Miranda and Jose Berrios wrapping up the series on Thursday afternoon.
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Here’s how the Twins will line up against Gallardo:
Here’s how the M’s will counter against Mejia:
Gallardo has had a rough go of it this season, as he’s got a 6.26 ERA (5.03 FIP) with 6.8 K/9, 4.2 BB/9 and a 1.4 HR/9 rate. He has, however, regained some velocity on his fastball (92.3 mph average after being under 90 last year), though his four-seamer has gotten absolutely peppered this season (1.042 OPS against). Gallardo still has decent whiff rates on his curveball (10 percent this year, 12.6 percent career), but his fastballs are just so hittable that this should be a fairly strong matchup for a Twins offense that hasn’t necessarily hit better on the road (98 wRC+) than at home (100) despite the disparity in records.
Mejia has been shaky but has done just enough to get the job done in recent games, as his 4.18 ERA would attest with respect to his 5.88 FIP. He works deep into counts as he struggles with command, and as a result has thrown just 32.1 innings despite making seven starts (less than five innings per outing).
He does a fine job adding and subtracting on his fastball, peaking as high as 95.6 mph via Fangraphs’ PITCHf/x while settling in at 92.9 mph on average. That’s plenty hard for a lefty. His slider is a good swing-and-miss pitch (13.7 percent), while his rarely-thrown change (12.9 percent on 85 instances) isn’t too bad, either. He’s been extremely prone to home runs (2.0 per nine) and walks (4.7 per nine), which is a very, very poor combination, hence the ugly FIP. It’s a tightrope act that’ll be tough to walk long-term.
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Roster Move
The Twins reinstated Jorge Polanco from the bereavement list and optioned right-handed pitcher Chris Heston to Triple-A Rochester. Heston, whose other MLB experience this season came with the Seattle Mariners, worked in relief of Nik Turley on Sunday, tossing a shutout inning with one hit against his old friends, the San Francisco Giants. Heston’s best MLB season came with the Giants in 2015, when he started 31 games with a 3.95 ERA (4.02 FIP) and 1.31 WHIP.
“I had a chance to talk to him. Those are tough circumstances, when you have those type of close relationships. But it’s good to have him back, I think baseball hopefully will be good medicine for him,” said manager Paul Molitor. “I’m sure he’ll be available.”
Heston gives the Red Wings a full 25-man roster, though the signing of Tim Melville means they’ll have to make a move.
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Injury Updates
Glen Perkins missed a simulated game due to rain, but is scheduled to throw another one and “potentially, if things go well, join the [Class A Fort Myers] Miracle here within the next 10 days or so,” said Molitor.
As for Phil Hughes: “Phil continues to have some experience of sensations in fingers and things that we’re not totally sure what the source is, and we continue to try to do as best we can to try to get to the bottom of what we need to get him moving forward.”
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Notes and Quotes
- The Twins are 20-9 on the road this season, but just 12-18 at Target Field. “A big difference-maker in the overall home record kinda goes back to the extra-inning game,” said Molitor. “We’ve talked about that a lot, and how we went through kind of a rough series immediately following that with the Houston debacle.”
- Kintzler’s blown save at Safeco pushed the Twins to 30-2 on the season when leading after eight innings. “Kintzler’s been our closer, and we’ve had a few guys that we’ve used more late than others, but I continually have been open-minded about trying to get the right people out there and have a chance to win games, somehow bridging our starter to Kintzler.”
- The Twins are 24-11 when the score at least four runs, and 7-16 otherwise.
- The Twins still boast MLB’s highest offensive walk rate (10.4 percent), though the Cubs (10.2 percent) are closing in. The Twins are hitting .250/.331/.413 as a team.
– Tom Schreier contributed to this report
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