It’s steamy and for the most part sunny as the Minnesota Twins prepare to open a four-game series — their final one of the first half — against the visiting Baltimore Orioles. A pair of good righties will tangle in this one, as Jose Berrios takes the ball for the Twins and Dylan Bundy counters for the Orioles.
Felix Jorge was in the clubhouse chatting with teammates and learning about his new home stadium — since his MLB debut was in Kansas City — and manager Paul Molitor confirmed that he would start on Friday.
“He’s pitching tomorrow,” Molitor said. “We will have to make a roster move to get him on tomorrow.”
“We told him when he left, you never know when your chance might come, and sure enough it’s six days,” Molitor added.
Molitor also said that Hector Santiago had his MRI, and everything came back fairly clean. “There was some wear and tear, and there’s some inflammation,” he said. “We think it’s probably best to take the ball out of his hand here until after the break, and then see where we’re at and start kinda building back up.”
Craig Breslow also said his 30-pitch bullpen went well, and he’s headed to Rochester over the weekend to pitch on Sunday. He’ll throw just before the All-Star break down there, and then be reevaluated to see what’s next. Chris Gimenez caught his bullpen, and had rave reviews. “His stuff looked really good,” Gimenez said following batting practice.
Here’s how the Twins will line up in this one:
Joe Mauer remains out of the lineup for a second straight day with back spasms, though a chance remains that the Twins will just ride out the first half a bit shorthanded rather than promote someone and put Mauer on the disabled list.
“We’re gonna get a little more information here in Joe,” Molitor said. “He’s doing what he can today to get himself potentially available late. It’s obvious that we’re situational, where the break is looming, and we don’t want to do anything foolish to set him back before that time. We’ll look at all our options going forward, and see how he does today.”
Here’s how the O’s will counter
Berrios has terrific season numbers — 3.44 ERA (3.90 FIP), 9.0 K/9, 2.6 BB/9, 1.07 WHIP — but has hit tougher times in his last two starts, allowing a total of nine earned runs over in Twins losses to Boston and Kansas City. He’ll also be getting his second look at Baltimore on the season, as he pitched the Twins to a 4-3 win back on May 24 — his third start of the season. Berrios allowed three earned runs in 6.1 innings that day — on three solo home runs — with seven strikeouts, two walks and just four hits allowed overall. Those home runs account for nearly half of the home runs he’s allowed this season (three). He also allowed three home runs last time out against the Royals in an 11-6 loss at Kauffman Stadium.
Overall, June was a strong month for the 23-year-old Berrios, as he posted a 3.21 ERA, 33 strikeouts and nine walks in 33.2 innings and an OPS against of .614. It also helps that Chris Davis is injured and some of Baltimore’s biggest hitters are slumping.
I tracked down terrific Orioles reporter Roch Kubatko of MASN Sports and here’s what he had to say about Bundy:
“The most impressive about him was that he was the one guy in the rotation who was getting deep into games — six, seven innings, quality starts. He had a nice streak going where everyone else was struggling to get through five, and he was a godsend in that regard,” Kubatko said. “But then all the sudden he started to look like he may be hitting the wall a little bit, and the first inclination is that he only worked 109.2 innings last year. He started out in the bullpen and didn’t join the rotation until after the All-Star break. Maybe he was starting to wear down a bit. He insisted that wasn’t the case, and that he was fresh. However, the club is finding ways to freshen him up. They’ve gotten him some extra rest on an off-day. He’s going to have the whole break off, and when it ends, he’ll go to the back of the rotation, so it’ll be like having 11 days off. So they’re hoping that freshens him up a bit, because they’re not going to shut him down. They’re going to have him run the whole year through — hopefully through the playoffs — so they’re going to find ways to control the innings a little bit without being too obvious about it.”
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Notes and Quotes
- The Twins have won all three meetings with the Orioles this season, and have won four straight games against them overall.
- Starters have thrown 22.2 of the 27 innings so far on the homestand for the Twins.
- Taylor Rogers leads the AL with 19 holds. He’s tied with Colorado’s Adam Ottavino for first in MLB overall.
- MLB announced on Thursday evening that Mike Moustakas of the Kansas City Royals and Justin Turner of the Los Angeles Dodgers had won the final vote for the All-Star teams. Both are third basemen, and Moustakas is also Miguel Sano’s Round 1 opponent in the home run derby.
- Molitor on Berrios: “Last start, it wasn’t bad, it just probably wasn’t his best, and we’re a little bit on a roll in terms of getting some starts from our guys in the rotation, and hopefully he follows suit.”
- Molitor on the difference between now and a year ago: “I try not to remember what it felt like. The first half in particular was … it just had a lot of challenges. We got into a little bit of a stretch in the middle of the season where we held our own into competitiveness for a little bit of a stretch. But it’s a tough feeling, going into the second half when you’re basically just trying to figure out how to compete each day and hopefully the guys take a lot of pride in our profession. We’ve played well enough to give ourselves reason to be optimistic about the second half being meaningful, but things can change. You have to stay after it, you’re gonna have stretches where it gets tough, and you’re gonna have some other stretches, hopefully, where you can string some things together. But try to finish up here. I think it will really help us finish up the first half as best we can.”
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