Another late bullpen blow-up turned a close game into a laugher as the Seattle Mariners dropped the Minnesota Twins 10-1 in the first game of a three-game weekend set at Target Field. The Twins have lost seven games in a row, and need to win the final two games in the series to avoid suffering their 100th loss of the season in front of their home fans during Fan Appreciation Weekend.
The offense had no answer for Seattle left-hander James Paxton, who mixed in high-90s fastballs with a devastating curve to keep the Twins off the scoreboard until the very end of his night. And even then, there was an element of serendipity to how the Twins strung together their sole run of the night.
Here’s what we saw from our vantage point:
Paxton looked incredible
The big lefty fanned nine batters and walked none in seven solid innings, finishing with 85 pitches (63 strikes). Brooks Baseball had Paxton averaging 95.6 mph with both his four-seamer and sinker, with the former reaching 99 mph and the latter a mere 98. The curve was absolutely devastating, as he induced 15 swings on 24 instances with nine misses (32.1 percent whiff rate). Brooks and ESPN both concur: Paxton had 13 swinging strikes — good for a super-elite 15.3 percent whiff rate on the night. The future is bright for Paxton, who is in the midst of a breakout season.
Kyle Gibson only allowed two earned runs — but wasn’t particularly good
Just 54 of his 99 pitches went for strikes, and as we’ve illustrated in the past, he struggled to throw first-pitch strikes — a must for someone with Gibson’s repertoire. Gibson walked four batters and fanned just two, so the five hits he gave up in five innings look a lot less impressive when considering he allowed nine baserunners in five innings — nearly a 2.00 WHIP. True to form though, it was death by grounders for Gibson, who allowed no extra-base hits and had a 9-4 groundball-to-flyball ratio. Keeping the ball on the ground can mitigate damage significantly, and that’s what Gibson was able — for the most part — to do on Friday.
J.T. Chargois probably didn’t even need to shower
He threw one pitch — a double that Nelson Cruz throttled to left-center to bring home Ben Gamel and Robinson Cano, with both runs charged to Ryan O’Rourke. That made the score 5-0, and brought up a left-handed hitter (Kyle Seager) which manager Paul Molitor countered with lefty Buddy Boshers. I questioned the move at the time….
https://twitter.com/Brandon_Warne/status/779511451698335745
…and the move backfired for Molitor as well, as Seager doubled to left-center, plating Cruz and giving the Mariners a 6-0 lead. It wasn’t so much that it was a bad managerial decision — in fact, in the moment it was a good one, most likely — but why not let the young reliever who is clearly part of your team’s future fight his way through an outing as opposed to bringing in the situational lefty who may or may not be on the team next year come in to preserve what is already a five-run deficit?
The bullpen was leaky for the Twins — yet again
O’Rourke, Chargois, Boshers and Tommy Milone combined to allow eight earned runs over just three innings. Milone fell prey to Cruz eating up lefties, as the DH crushed an absolute bomb to dead center to cap the scoring in the eighth. Andrew Albers was the only Twins pitcher not to give up a run on the night, as he threw a scoreless ninth despite allowing a hit and a walk.
Cruz is a bad man
Not only did Cruz hit a wicked, knuckling double over short and into the left-center gap against Chargois, but he absolutely tattooed a 1-2 offering from Milone. We’ll let the Mariners MLB.com reporter take it from here:
So is Robinson Cano, actually
Cano poked four hits — one fewer than the Twins had total as a team. They were all just singles, but a four-hit game is impressive no matter how you slice it. It’s his second four-hit game of the season.
I regret to inform you that Byron Buxton is at it again
Reports of Buxton’s demise were, uh….premature.
Miguel Sano wasn’t just the only Twin with multiple hits, but the only Twin to reach base more than once
Sano tripled — seriously — with a little help from Ben Gamel in right field and then came home when Kennys Vargas hit a scorching drive that deflected off Paxton and into center field. Sano also walked, and as a result accounted for three of the six times the Twins reached base in an ugly all-around offensive effort. Single-game team batting lines don’t tell you much absent context, but the team as a whole hit just .161/.188/.226 on Friday night. They were eating out of the palm of Paxton’s (and Dan Altavilla and Arquimedes Caminero) hand.
There’s a very real chance loss No. 100 comes before the Twins head back out on the road
They’re at 99 now, with two more games left against the Mariners who are still in hot pursuit of a playoff spot. The Twins did wonders for the Tigers’ playoff odds in the last series — the odds went from 24 percent to over 50 percent in the three-game drubbing — and the Mariners are hoping for the same. They’re at 14 percent heading into Saturday’s game, as they trail the Tigers by two games for that last Wild Card spot.
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Up Next: LHP Ariel Miranda vs. RHP Tyler Duffey – 6:10 p.m. Saturday, Target Field
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Notes
- The start of the game was delayed 49 minutes due to rain.
- At 55-99, the Twins have to go 6-2 the rest of the way to finish with a better record than the 1982 Twins (60-102).
- The most losses in Twins-Senators franchise history is 113 back in 1904. From a more modern era, the 1949 Senators lost 104 games. By winning percentage, this current group is already the worst in Twins history.
- The Twins have lost seven straight games, and are now just 18-33 against left-handed starters this season.
- Sano’s triple in the seventh was the second of his career.
- Seattle is now 12-12 all-time at Target Field.
- This was Cano’s second four-hit game of the season (May 7, Houston).
