On Twitter there’s a thing called #WeirdBaseball, and what it requires is ice cream and what it entails is an MLB game going beyond midnight in the local TV market.
And to say things got weird on Tuesday night is an understatement. After a nearly three-hour rain delay, the Twins and A’s got game two underway at 9:52 p.m. That was the latest first pitch in Target Field history, and the circumstances — two scuffling teams beyond the bad weather — resulted in the lowest attended game in the stadium’s history.
The final pitch of the game — from Brandon Kintzler to Jed Lowrie — came at exactly 1:00 a.m.
The Twins grabbed an 11-4 win, and with a quick turnaround look to take the series 2-1 before heading to Texas to take on the Rangers in a four-game series — the final one before the All Star Game.
Twins players weren’t required to report to the stadium until 10:30 a.m., so player availability was sparse, but here are some of the highlights.
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Eduardo Escobar was testing his hamstring down the right field line with trainers prior to the game. Manager Paul Molitor said he hoped he’d at least have Escobar available if he needed him late in the game, which lines up with the originally reported timeline that he’d be ready to return to the lineup maybe on Thursday (game one in Texas).
Byron Buxton is out of the lineup, but Molitor says he’s OK. It looked as though he was moving around a little gingerly in the clubhouse, but it sounds like there’s nothing to worry about there.
Also out of the lineup is Kennys Vargas, who had a pair of key extra-base hits — his first two MLB hits of the season — in Tuesday/Wednesday’s win. Miguel Sano is DH’ing, with All Star Eduardo Nunez moving over to third and Danny Santana getting a start at short. The move of Santana to short was foretold by the Pioneer Press’ Mike Berardino on Tuesday’s edition of Midwest Swing, and it’s unclear if that’s a one-off thing or could be seen more frequently in the season’s final few months.
Santana has just one game at short this season, as he played seven innings there on July 2 in relief of Escobar after the latter was injured.
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Here’s how the Twins line up today:
The Twins are getting a look at Sonny Gray, the embattled A’s ace who has taken a step back after putting together a really solid 2015 season (14-7, 2.73 ERA). Gray was better in June (3.23 ERA in five starts), but his strikeout stuff took a hit (6.5 K/9). Gray completely scrapped his changeup in June, instead leaning more on sinkers (naturally not a strikeout pitch so the results make sense). The whiff rate on his slider has remained solid, but everything else was iffy in June, and that combined with the added reliance on his sinker probably explains why the strikeouts dropped off.
On the positive side for Gray, he has picked up more grounders this year (54.4 percent) than last (52.7), and that rate jumped to 56.7 percent in June after being just 44.6 percent in May. It looks like he’s working through some stuff.
Gray is also coming off being completely lit up in his most recent start, as the Pirates scored seven runs on seven hits in six innings. That pushed Gray’s season ERA up to 5.42, and it’s been up over 5.00 since early May.
