A 10th-inning home run for Ian Desmond provided the difference as the Texas Rangers won their 52nd game of the year while handing the Minnesota Twins their 54th loss at Target Field Friday night. The home run, Desmond’s 15th which traveled an estimated 418 feet to right-center, came against Twins lefty Fernando Abad (1-3).
It was just the second home run allowed by Abad all season, but both have come over span of roughly two weeks as he’s become increasingly vincible as the season has worn on.
Twins starter Ervin Santana put together a strong effort, tossing 6.1 strong innings while leaving with the game tied 0-0, though responsible for a pair of runners as reliever Ryan Pressly entered.
“I felt great,” Santana said postgame. “Everything was down in the zone. Me and Kurt were on the same page for the whole game.”
Both of Pressly’s inherited runners came on walks — to Prince Fielder and Elvis Andrus — and both came around to score as a pair of singles from Mitch Moreland and pinch hitter Jurickson Profar kept the line moving.
That gave Texas a short-lived 2-0 lead.
The Twins replied quickly in the bottom half of the seventh. Brian Dozier snuck a single between Andrus and Adrian Beltre on the left side of the Texas infield to lead off the inning and extend his hitting streak to a career-high 13 games. Trevor Plouffe followed that with an opposite field home run — apparently the first true home run to right field in his career — to the flower pots in right field, checking in at a fence-scraping 363 feet to tie the game at two apiece.
Those were the only runs the Twins could muster against Rangers starter Martin Perez, who was tough to solve all night despite fanning just four batters with three walks. The Twins managed just five hits against Perez, who went seven strong innings.
The middle of the Twins bullpen was solid in relief of Santana. Pressly recovered to get a pair of outs — including a strikeout — and Taylor Rogers threw a clean inning with three strikeouts of left-handed hitters to navigate around a Beltre single. Brandon Kintzler also threw a clean frame in the ninth, including striking out Andrus on three pitches to lead off the inning with a sinker that he ran all the way up to 96 mph.
Matt Bush (3-1) came in to relieve Perez and allowed just one hit over his two frames, fanning a pair of batters while reaching into the upper 90s with his electric repertoire. Sam Dyson worked the 10th for his 17th save, throwing eight pitches — all strikes.
The Twins failed to cash in a couple big opportunities during the game. Plouffe led off the fifth with an infield single and that was followed up by a single for Robbie Grossman. Max Kepler bunted both over and nearly beat the throw to first, but that put the Twins in a solid spot to break through with the first runs of the game.
And if it was perhaps a bit strange that the No. 7 hitter would bunt to make way for the Nos. 8 and 9 hitters, it got worse as Kurt Suzuki popped up a bunt with Plouffe streaking home on the suicide squeeze, making for an easy, inning-ending double play as Mitch Moreland caught the ball in foul territory and fired it to Beltre to end the inning.
The Twins again failed to take advantage in the bottom half of the 10th with the game hanging in the balance. Kepler led off with a first-pitch single to left. Suzuki missed his first two bunt attempts, and then struck out swinging on pitch three, with Byron Buxton following suit with a three-pitch strikeout of his own. Eduardo Nunez followed with a first-pitch grounder to short, and as a result it’s hard to envision an easier inning of work for Dyson to get the save — all things considered.
The damage in the top half of the 10th could have been much worse however, as Buxton made an incredible play to rob Rougned Odor of extra bases with two outs and a runner on first. Buxton told reporters after the game that the ball kept carrying on him, but by the time he caught up with it he was ready to run full bore into the left-center fence in front of the bullpen. Buxton said his entire right side hit the fence as he came down with the ball, but he was no worse for the wear afterward.
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Up Next: RHP Chi Chi Gonzalez (0-0, 9.00) vs. RHP Tyler Duffey (3-6, 5.59) – Saturday, 1:10 pm
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Notes & Quotes
- Manager Paul Molitor announced that Tommy Milone would start on Tuesday. There was some question who might make the start based on Milone’s shaky outing in Chicago, but it appears the team will give him at least one more go-round in the rotation.
- The Twins fell to 5-9 against the Rangers dating back to the beginning of the 2014 season.
- This was Santana’s seventh quality start of the season, but just the second in his last six starts.
- Dozier is 22-for-51 (.431 average) during his 13-game hitting streak.
- Santana threw a season-high 117 pitches — the second-most he’s thrown in a start as a Twin and most since throwing 119 last Sept. 5 in Houston.
- Abad threw a pitch 57 mph to Nomar Mazara in his inning of work. If that velocity stands up in the PITCHf/x databases, it’ll be the slowest pitch he’s ever thrown in his career. According to the Fangraphs database, his previous low was a 60.1 mph changeup earlier this season.
- Santana on if he could feel the pitches mounting in his right arm: “Not at all. I don’t even think about that. (Molitor) gave me the opportunity to stay the game, and gave me more enthusiasm to pitch. It was fine. It was good.”
- Santana on deep counts running up his pitch count: “The first inning was the tough one, because I threw 20-plus pitches. In the last two games that’s been the key for me. I just have to change the approach in the first inning, and go into attack mode.”
- Molitor on Santana’s effort: “Ervin had a nice night. I thought the first inning was kind of big for him. It seemed like he was searching a little bit, but he got through it. Then he kind of settled in. The slider kind of came around. He was spotting his fastball good. His changeup became more effective. He got deep, and I tried to let him go there. I don’t know if that was his highest pitch count of the year. I talked to him before the inning and went out there to make sure he was still OK, but after Andrus walked we had to make a change.”
- Molitor on the offense against Perez: “We didn’t do a lot offensively. Trevor backed up Dozier’s good at-bat with the opposite field homer. We just tried to find a way to keep pushing but couldn’t get another run across. They hit the longball for the win.”
- Molitor on Abad’s work of late: “There was a little gap there in his appearances before yesterday. I don’t see a big change. Obviously that fastball wasn’t where he wanted it, but he’s still one of our guys back here at the end of the game that you’re going to count on. I’m sure it probably affects you if you don’t pitch for eight days as far as being back out there and facing hitters.”
- Molitor on opposing starter Perez: “(His fastball) had late movement as they say. You read four-seamer and you go to hit it and it dives at the end. He was good. The slider kept us honest, at least the right-handed hitters. He’s been tough on lefties all year; we know that, we saw Max have trouble with that two-seamer in. He had a good night. We only had that opportunity really until we got the home run.”
