Immediately after sweeping Seattle Mariners, the Minnesota Twins have been swept by the Oakland Athletics. On one road trip, they knocked the Mariners out of first and the A’s out of last.
It is the eighth time they were swept of the season, and they are now 7-22 on the road this year, 15-37 on the season.
“Disappointing,” manager Paul Molitor told the Star Tribune. “The offense we saw in Seattle didn’t make the trip south. You get off to a good start, and end up splitting the road trip, you’ve got to try to regroup.”
Oakland got to Minnesota starter Pat Dean early, producing a run in five straight innings after he pitched a scoreless first.
“Usually we’ve been a team that puts a big inning together, but it was just consistent production up and down the lineup today,” Oakland slugger Billy Butler told the Associated Press. “The boys are motivated, boys are playing together. We’re wanting to keep the streak going.”
With Joe Mauer getting a day off after playing in 50 of the first 51 games and Miguel Sano on the disabled list, Brian Dozier, Trevor Plouffe and Byung Ho Park made up the 3-4-5 spots in the order. They combined to go 2-for-9, with each player drawing a walk, and loaded the bases in the sixth with no outs.
But instead of closing the 5-0 gap at that point in the game, Eduardo Escobar hit a sac fly to make it 5-1 and Max Kepler and Juan Centeno struck out.
“It was disappointing,” Molitor told the Star Tribune. “You’re hoping you can keep the line moving, get yourself back into the game, but we got the sac fly and then a checked swing, and we couldn’t finish off. We didn’t get a lot of [opportunities], but that was one where we didn’t maximize our chance.”
[Star Tribune, Associated Press]
