For the second night in a row, a two-run home run did the Minnesota Twins in against the Toronto Blue Jays. On Thursday night, Josh Donaldson walked and on the next pitch Edwin Encarnacion hit a towering home run to left. On Friday, Jose Bautista singled and then it was Donaldson going deep, as he hit a 430-foot home run to left to give the Blue Jays a 2-1 lead they’d never relinquish on the way to a 9-3 blowout win at Target Field.
The loss was the Twins’ fifth in a row, and sixth straight to the Blue Jays as they fell to 10-31 on the season.
For the second night in a row the Twins took an early lead. In the second, Miguel Sano led off with an infield single to short. Two batters later, Robbie Grossman — who went 3-for-4 and drove in all three Twins runs — doubled to the left field corner on the first pitch he saw as a Twin, and moved up to third base on a throwing error by Ryan Goins, who attempted to throw out Sano at the plate. Sano scored quite easily to give the Twins a 1-0 lead.
That was the only lead they’d hold all night.
Tyler Duffey (1-3) didn’t pitch as poorly as the final line indicated, and in fact set down the Jays 1-2-3 in the first and wriggled out of a jam in the second after a pair of singles by Justin Smoak and Michael Saunders led off the inning. But it was the third inning that got the wheels turning for the powerful Jays offense, as Bautista punched a single to left and Donaldson hit a full count pitch well into the second deck at Target Field.
“I tried to get it over instead of throwing the good one. In retrospect, I probably shouldn’t have done that,” Duffey said of the pitch to Donaldson that ultimately cemented his fate.
The 2-2 pitch from Duffey to Donaldson was a fastball that shaved the outside corner, but couldn’t entice home plate umpire Andy Fletcher to call it a strike, and the rest was history. Duffey again bounced back strongly with good fourth and fifth innings, facing just seven batters as he worked around a Russell Martin single in the fourth.
But things went haywire in the sixth.
Duffey started the inning by fanning Smoak on a nice curveball, but six of the next seven batters reached. Saunders singled back up the box and scored on a booming double to right-center by Troy Tulowitzki. Duffey bounced back to get Martin out, but then hit Ezequiel Carrera on the toe and gave up a pinch-hit single to Jimmy Paredes before giving way to Trevor May.
The first batter May faced was Bautista, who deposited his 2-1 offering into the left field stands to give the Jays a 7-1 lead, and the rout was on. Donaldson followed by doubling off the very top of the fence in right-center, but was stranded at third as May recovered to get Encarnacion to fly to center for his only out of the night.
The Jays tacked on single runs in the seventh and eight with home runs by Saunders and Darwin Barney, respectively, to cap their scoring for the night.
Grossman’s first-game heroics weren’t over yet, as he singled home Jorge Polanco in the seventh before hitting a solo home run off Chad Girodo in the ninth to wrap up the scoring for both sides.
Aaron Sanchez (4-1) had no trouble handling the Twins offense, scattering eight hits and a pair of earned runs while fanning seven batters. More importantly for Sanchez was that he walked zero batters — just his second such start of the season. His only other zero-walk performance this year came in his season-opening start on April 5 against the Rays, a 3-2 Blue Jays loss.
Notes and Quotes
- The Twins fell to 3-14 when they score first in a game this season.
- This was Grossman’s first big league home run since April 18 of last year, when he hit one for the Astros — his only one of the season — against Angels reliever Mike Morin. Grossman has 12 career home runs, with just one coming against a pitcher with ties to the Twins (Neal Cotts).
- This was Grossman’s 130th career game in left field, and his first game with two extra-base hits since Sept. 2, 2014, when he doubled twice — also against the Angels (Yoslan Herrera, C.J. Wilson).
- Danny Santana hit a booming triple in the fifth inning off Sanchez, and reached on a bunt single in the third which rolled all the way to the first base bag, ultimately hitting it to stay fair.
- Polanco’s seventh-inning double was the fourth of his career.
- Duffey on if fatigue played into his struggles in the sixth: “No. It was just not executing. I was pulling off my curveball. The changeup I felt good about, I was just bouncing a lot of them. I threw some good ones and got some outs early in the game with it. I think I was more concerned with keeping it down instead of getting bad swings with it. I gave up six earned…that’s not going to cut it.”
- Duffey on facing the Jays and how difficult that can be: “We talked about it in our meetings before we played them that if you get behind, that’s when they feast. If you don’t get ahead and stay ahead, they get into those fastball counts and can get comfortable in the box.”
- Duffey on if he wasn’t getting calls he usually does: “Not necessarily. They were a little further out than normal. I think it was me trying to make the perfect pitch instead of just doing what I had to. That’s something you do…whether it’s adrenaline or whatever you want to call it. I was ready to get some guys out. I think I was good with the fastball; I was locating it fairly well. With the curveball, when I’m not mixing that in for a strike, it kind of eliminates that for them. I kind of did them a favor. In that last inning, the lefties swung through the first couple, and instead of bouncing it I tried to throw the perfect chase breaking ball.”
- Paul Molitor on Duffey’s performance: “It was a good game for five innings. He got the breaking ball up to Donaldson, but he hung in there. In the sixth inning they just kind of pecked away. They had some good at-bats, and got some two-strike, two-out knocks. Once we went out to the bullpen, the ball started flying around a little bit. In the last week, we’ve had an eight-run inning and a seven-run inning. Tonight was a five-run inning…those big crooked numbers make it tough. He hung in there, but it got to the point where we had to go the bullpen.”
- Molitor on how to keep guys motivated: “We’re trying to find ways the best we can. It’s challenging. These guys are hungry to find ways to try win games and it’s just not happening. We had a good series in Cleveland and then Detroit…things kind of went backwards a bit.”
- Molitor on Grossman’s debut: “Robbie had a nice night. First pitch he saw he smoked into the corner, and had a real good at-bat when he singled up the middle. True to form, his better side is probably his right-hand side, and he got a changeup and hit it over the fence. A very nice debut for him.”
- Molitor on May of late: “It’s one of those things where you watch the replays and you can see that he’s missing locations. It’s easier said than done to fix that. I think he’s trying to corral the natural ability he has and trying to find a way to get back to getting outs. He’s just kind of struggling with his sequence and what he’s using. I saw he broke the slider back out tonight, which we hadn’t seen in a while. He’s just getting balls in that area where these guys are getting good swings. It’s one of those things where we’re trying to take some pressure off him. Change roles a little bit and get him in there to get him going. I’m sure he’s frustrated, but we’ve got to find a way to get him back because he’s a valuable arm for us.”
