Jose Berrios established his fastball in the first inning and only gave up two hits in the Minnesota Twins 5-0 win over the Arizona Diamondbacks on Saturday. All five runs came off of D-backs starter Zack Greinke in the fourth inning after the Twins left the bases loaded in the first inning.
“Jose, with a couple extra day’s rest, you’re hoping that it would do him some good. If there was a first inning hurdle, he leaped over it, and he just seemed to get stronger,” said manager Paul Molitor. “We kinda put it all together in one inning.”
The Twins have won three in a row, 10 of their last 13, and have an opportunity to sweep the Diamondbacks tomorrow. At 62-59 they remain in the Wild Card hunt, and are six games back of the Cleveland Indians in the AL Central.
Berrios was pitching on two extra days rest. Molitor said he did not discuss it with him, as he didn’t want to make a big deal of it, but he said pitching coach Neil Allen told him Berrios had a good bullpen and the extra rest seemed to do him good.
“To imagine where he is now compared to a year ago, it’s just leaps and bounds as far as how he handles adversity in the game,” said Molitor, noting that Berrios has recovered in starts where he struggled in the first inning.
Minnesota had the bases loaded with one out in the first inning, but Eddie Rosario and Eduardo Escobar, the five and six hitters, popped out to end the inning.
But Greinke’s 30-pitch first inning had a cumulative effect, and when Rosario led off the fourth with a single and Escobar advanced on an error by second baseman Daniel Descalso, things started to come undone for one of the better pitchers in the game.
Jorge Polanco, the eighth hitter, singled to load the bases with one out, and then Jason Castro, the ninth batter, walked to drive in a run. Brian Dozier, Max Kepler and Joe Mauer — the first three batters in the lineup — all singled to drive in runs and the Twins never relinquished their lead.
“We didn’t capitalize on that situation, which against a pitcher like that can come back against you once in a while,” said Molitor. “But we did make him work, that’s been a somewhat recurring theme for our team is that we seem to get pitch counts up there. With a guy like that, you take advantage.”
Miguel Sano pulled up limp on a double play in the fourth inning — the only negative in an otherwise strong frame — and is day-to-day with left low leg shin soreness.
“We tried to protect him with the DH role a little bit tonight,” said Molitor. “Obviously you can see it’s bothering him, you can see how he ran down to first base.”
Sano’s injury opened the door for Mitch Garver to make his major league debut in the seventh inning. He struck out in his only at-bat.
Minnesota has a chance to sweep tomorrow before heading to Chicago to face the White Sox in a double-header. The suddenly hot bats, supplemented by better pitching, can keep them in the race so long as they don’t run into any more injury trouble — or slump like they did right before the trade deadline.
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