Twins

4/21 GAME NOTES: Twins Win Torii's Broadcasting Debut thanks to Rosario Home Run

A three-run home run by Eddie Rosario — his first of the season — capped a six-run sixth inning as the Minnesota Twins saved all their runs for one frame in a 6-3 win over the Detroit Tigers at Target Field on Friday night. After being held down offensively for virtually the entire homestand, the Twins took out their frustrations — not only for the first five innings Friday but the last five games of the homestand — on Justin Verlander (1-2) and friends to improve to just 2-5 on this nine-game homestand.

It was a strange outing for Verlander, who allowed zero runs through the first five innings, but did not record an out in the pivotal sixth inning before getting lifted in favor of Kyle Ryan. Verlander walked the first three batters of the inning before Robbie Grossman jumped on the first pitch for a two-run, seeing-eye single out into right field. That led to Verlander getting lifted after throwing 107 strikes while still holding good velocity — up to 95 mph — after the century mark.

Scattershot command led to Verlander’s pitch count being run up rather early, as he walked six batters against just four strikeouts but only allowed three hits.

Kyle Ryan entered and got Jason Castro to ground out to Ian Kinsler with both runners moving up. After that, manager Brad Ausmus went to the bullpen again for hard-throwing rookie Joe Jimenez, who was just recalled from Triple-A Toledo prior to the game. Jorge Polanco hit a 1-1 jam shot into left field to tie the game. Rosario followed with a 383-foot home run to left-center on the first pitch, as he ambushed a Jimenez fastball — his signature pitch — to cap the scoring and give the Twins a 6-3 lead.

That’s some kind of gift for Rosario to give to his WBC teammate Jimenez on his first day back in the big leagues, is it not?

Hector Santiago (2-1) was strong for the Twins, and left to a standing ovation with one out in the seventh after retiring Andrew Romine on a popout to Joe Mauer. Santiago has pitched into the seventh inning in three straight starts, and his ERA is at a solid 2.19 through four starts with Friday’s performance: three earned runs, seven hits, six strikeouts and a walk. His only real mistake was a 1-2 fastball left up to James McCann in the sixth, which the catcher smoked out to left for his fourth home run of the season and second against the Twins.

Here’s what we saw from our vantage point:

Santiago looked really, really good

Santiago said after the game that both his changeup and screwball were working for him on the night. And while the Target Field scoreboard finally differentiated the two — something Santiago pointed out after the game — Brooks Baseball doesn’t. Either way, he threw 16 screwballs and changeups combined, with 12 coming in as strikes with five swinging strikes. That’s impressive no matter how you slice it (31.3 percent whiff rate). He also got six swinging strikes on his sinker — of which he threw 64 — for an impressive 9.4 percent whiff rate. Anything near 10 percent on a pitcher’s primary pitch — especially when it’s some type of fastball — is more than respectable.

Santiago said after the game that he thought every hit he gave up came with two outs, and the story adds up. Miguel Cabrera — who left the game with a groin strain in the seventh and will be reevaluated on Saturday — socked a solid single to left with two outs in the first. In the third, Nicholas Castellanos, Cabrera and Victor Martinez each had two-out singles before a booming double from Justin Upton over the head of Byron Buxton in center. In the fifth, Cabrera again got Santiago with a chipped bat infield single and in the sixth, McCann squared Santiago up for the home run. So in that sense, Santiago said he felt like his execution could have been just a little better to close out innings, but it was still a solid performance overall.

….so did Verlander….for the first five innings

Verlander was at 95 mph all night on his fastball and ran it up as high as 98 a couple times when he needed it. So much for him being “done” a couple years ago, huh? He also had a “slider/cutter” hybrid — Paul Molitor said after the game that it’s really whatever you want to call it — that was routinely coming in at 90-91 mph and even found 93 at one point, according to Brooks. However, the Twins did a good job putting the bat on the ball when they swung. Verlander had just six swinging strikes on the night — which for a pitcher of his caliber is not really up to snuff (5.6 percent). His season rate coming into the game was 9.7 percent and his career rate even better at 10.1 percent.  

The Twins ran up the pitch count on Verlander all night, including an incredible plate appearance by Polanco

Basically speaking, that’s what a walking team can do to a pitcher. The Twins came into the game No. 1 in MLB in walk rate and continued that on Friday night. That’s important because even when the team isn’t hitting — which has been basically the last week here — working counts has value in getting starters out of the game. Now, that’s less valuable against Cleveland — who just left here and has an obscenely good bullpen — that it might be against a team like Detroit, but nonetheless, it’s never a bad thing to pollute the bases with runners.

The one plate appearance we want to key on here is Polanco’s first one, which came in the second inning. Polanco fell behind 0-2, saw nine pitches and ultimately walked on a breaking ball in the dirt. Polanco already commands the strike zone like a five-year veteran, yet he’s only 23. There’s ice water running through his veins. After two innings, Verlander had thrown 38 pitches and after three he was already up to 60 — all of which hastened his exit and got a shaky Tigers bullpen into the game — with Verlander’s help in the sixth as well, of course.

Friday night was a good “back on the bicycle” outing for Ryan Pressly

Pressly only threw eight pitches, but he came in behind Santiago and wrapped up the seventh a grounder to short off the bat of Kinsler — including a low throw from Polanco that Mauer deftly picked out at first — and a swinging strikeout on a check swing from Castellanos on a nasty, nasty curveball out of the strike zone. Pressly threw just eight pitches, but got four swinging strikes. It doesn’t come much more dominant than that. He was up as high as 96 with his fastball and 91 with his slider, so he should be back in form in no time.  

We don’t like the idea of players being “due,” but Rosario was “due” for a home run

Rosario had hit the ball to the base of the fence the inning before (the fifth) against Verlander that Upton just barely tracked down, and appeared to have been putting together better at-bats leading up to the home run in the sixth.   

A quick look at Rosario’s Fangraphs page shows that he’s still swinging at pitches out of the zone from time to time, but he’s also swinging at more pitches in the zone and making more contact in the zone than ever before. There’s still some work to do here, but brighter days appear to be ahead for the 25-year-old left fielder.

Miguel Sano looked brilliant….on the defensive side of the ball

In the fourth inning, Tigers center fielder JaCoby Jones hit a slow roller down the third base line that Sano barehanded and threw to first to nip the speedy Jones by a half-step. He did it again in the eighth, as Taylor Rogers induced a grounder to third off the bat of Upton, with Sano doing virtually the same thing to get the out. Defensive stats are hard to get a grasp on even without small sample sizes, but so far Sano has been about even on Fangraphs metrics so far this season. With the way he’s been swinging, the Twins will absolutely take it.

From the “just missed” files

When Romine lined out to Brian Dozier to end the game, we were again deprived of a Kintzler-Kinsler matchup, as it left Kinsler on deck when the final out was recorded. Rats! They have met three times before; Ian is 1-for-3 with a single which came back in 2013.

Notes and Quotes

  • The win snapped a four-game losing streak for the Twins.
  • The Twins improved to 8-8 on the season and 5-5 at home with the win.
  • This marked Santiago’s third straight quality start.
  • The loss was Verlander’s first-ever defeat at Target Field in 10 starts at the park.
  • The Twins snapped an 11-game losing streak against the Tigers at Target Field. The Twins did not beat the Tigers at Target Field in 2016.
  • Max Kepler’s eight-game hitting streak was snapped, though he did smoke the first pitch he saw in the third inning to right field for a lineout. The exit velocity on that ball was 106.7 mph.  
  • Santiago on how he felt about the outing: “Good. The first couple innings, I know I was throwing a lot of first-pitch strikes, but I wasn’t commanding it as good as I wanted to. In that third inning, I came out and really settled down and threw some really good pitches. I just wanted to attack the zone.”
  • Santiago on the bats getting going in the sixth: “Oh yeah. When we scored those first two and pushed across another, and then Rosie hit that home run, I jumped over the wall and met him by home plate. You get pumped. You go out there and battle and you’re down 3-0, and you have a big inning like that against a guy like that. You struggle and then you put it on him. We made it hurt and we did a good job with getting those guys in when we needed to. It was a big inning, and I was pumped up for sure.”
  • Rosario on how it felt to circle the bases: “Oh yeah. Oh yeah. It’s been a long time since I’ve hit a home run. I hit a good one.”
  • Rosario on his last swing before the home run: “That was a good swing too. I thought that one was gone too.”
  • Rosario on if he’ll text Jimenez about the home run, since the WBC teammates have a group chat: “I won’t say anything…yet. Maybe later.”
  • Rosario on Jimenez: “He throws hard. He’s a good pitcher. I know he’s a rookie, but he has good stuff. A big slider and a good changeup, too.”

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