Twins

4/3 GAME NOTES: Twins Open Season in Style with 7-1 Win Against Royals

Santana looks to pitch the Twins to a two-game sweep of the Padres on Wednesday evening. (photo credit: Cumulus Media, Brian Curski)

The Minnesota Twins did something at Target Field on Monday they hadn’t done in nearly a decade — win on Opening Day. The Twins had last won the first game of the season in 2008, and in beating the Royals to get the 2017 season underway did so to snap a dubious eight-game losing skid in such games.

Ervin Santana (1-0) was sharp over seven innings, scattering two hits and a pair of walks while fanning three batters before giving way to Matt Belisle and Brandon Kintzler, who each tossed a clean inning to round out the 7-1 season-opening win. Santana’s counterpart Danny Duffy was equally tough on the day, as he mixed a mid-90s fastball with a devastating changeup to fan eight Twins hitters in six innings to open his season with a no-decision.

Much of the Twins offense came from the bottom part of the order, as Jason Castro reached base four times in his club debut with Jorge Polanco also adding a pair of hits and a walk. The Twins had runners on base all day — especially late — as they left 15 runners on despite scoring seven runs on the day.

Despite not getting to Duffy, the Twins offense jumped the Royals bullpen, as four Kansas City relievers combined to give up six runs in just two innings of work.

Here’s what we saw from our vantage point:

Byron Buxton showed he has value outside of the bat

It’s not a surprise to anyone who watches the game with half a brain, but the offensive side of the game is only part of the way a player can provide value. For some players who are poor defensively, their value hinges heavily on what they do at the plate. For players like Buxton, well, we can let his play do the talking:

Buxton laid out to rob Alex Gordon in the third inning on a full-count pitch from Santana on what MLB.com called the first “Five-Star” play of the season, which is based on the probability of that play being made by Statcast metrics. Two innings later, Buxton broke back on a jam shot off the bat of Paulo Orlando, slipped but then regained his composure quickly enough to come charging in and make another diving play.

Buxton told reporters after the game that he and his fellow outfielders have a motto this year. “Nothin’ falls but raindrops,” Buxton said in his unassuming southern drawl. So, despite going 0-for-5 with three strikeouts, it’s fair to say that Buxton significantly altered the outcome of this game — especially considering the context in which his plays were made. The game was scoreless when he laid out for the first one and tied 1-1 on the second.  

The bottom of the order carried the Twins in this one…

The top four batters in the order — Brian Dozier, Robbie Grossman, Buxton and Joe Mauer — combined to go just 1-for-15, and despite that, the team still scored seven runs on eight hits. Now that’s not a totally fair assessment; they also walked four times against seven strikeouts and scored three of the team’s seven runs. Still, it was the bottom part of the order that did much of the damage. Castro poked two singles over Mike Moustakas’ head at third base and walked twice — all against left-handed pitchers, which have traditionally given him trouble — out of the No. 6 hole while Polanco reached base three times with Max Kepler and Eddie Rosario picking up a hit apiece to round out the order.

Overall, six of the team’s eight hits came from batters who hit sixth or lower. And considering three of the four were lefties on a day when all but six pitches the Twins saw came from a left-handed pitcher — that’s an encouraging sign.    

….except for Miguel Sano hitting an absolute bomb to tie the game in the fourth

Manager Paul Molitor surmised postgame that Sano was upset about the end of his first plate appearance, when he popped a 3-1 Duffy fastball to second base for the second out of the second inning. He didn’t wait long for revenge, as he blasted the first pitch he saw from Duffy 414 feet to the second deck in left-center for his first home run of the season.

Sano also played a mostly competent third base defensively — he did play a grounder into an infield single in the ninth inning but was moving on the play — and in general had a solid first day of the season.

Outside of a home run to Mike Moustakas, Santana was on cruise control

Moustakas popped a 2-2 pitch out to right field to open the scoring leading off the fourth inning, but that was the only peep the Royals made until they had Santana on the ropes again in the seventh inning. Between Lorenzo Cain walks in the first and seventh innings, Santana set down 15 of the 17 batters he faced in the meantime, with Moustakas’ home run and a Salvador Perez single that was erased on a double play being the only outliers. Santana effectively mixed a fastball that Brooks Baseball has as high as 95.9 mph — routinely 93-94 on the stadium gun — with a solid slider and a handful of changeups. Santana threw 91 pitches (52 strikes) with 10 swinging strikes — five on the slider, three on the changeup and two on the fastball. Molitor went out to check on him with left-handed hitting Brandon Moss looming with the go-ahead run (Cain on his second walk) on base and Taylor Rogers ready to come in, but whatever Santana said convinced Molitor to keep him in.

Santana rewarded his skipper’s trust with a 2-2 slider in the dirt that completely fooled Moss for his second strikeout of the day — and inning. Yes, Santana didn’t get a strikeout until the seventh inning, but struck out the side to close out a strong day.   

The Twins couldn’t crack Duffy, but didn’t wait long to jump his bullpen counterparts; however, they handled the seventh inning interestingly

Duffy was absolutely dastardly, as he mixed a mid-90s fastball with a good slider and a changeup that gave Twins hitters fits all day. He got 16 swinging strikes on the day — solid considering he threw exactly 100 pitches — with seven of his swinging strikes coming on the changeup.

The Twins waited just two pitches to jump on West Fargo, N.D. native Matt Strahm, the left-handed reliever who took over for Duffy in the seventh, however. On an 0-1 pitch, Polanco looped a single just past the outstretched glove of shortstop Alcides Escobar. Max Kepler looked to bunt — more on that in a second — and after bunting foul on a play that was nearly a double play based on how catcher Perez fielded it, he finally got the 2-1 pitch down for a sacrifice bunt as he was called out at first. Kepler was beside himself after the call, and Molitor called for a review that showed Kepler was in fact safe. The Twins were then in business with two on, no out and a reliever who had done nothing wrong but induce a soft flare to the outfield and a bunt single.

At the time I questioned the bunt, and I’m still not sure it was the right call. First of all, Kepler was an eyelash from bunting into a double play. Perez jumped out of his crouch and tried to keep the ball fair, which would have resulted in an easy double play as a frustrated Kepler didn’t leave the box in a timely fashion. Instead, the ball was called fair and Kepler was granted a reprieve. But even on a successful bunt, Kepler was just moving the line for Rosario, the No. 9 hitter who doesn’t have platoon splits as a lefty but isn’t exactly a destination hitter when setting up RBI chances, either. With a nasty lefty on the mound, the ball would have still been in the Royals’ court, so to speak.

So if the plan was to attack Rosario to get the second out, the Royals could then have walked Dozier — which they ultimately did after Rosario bunted in the first intentional walk in Twins history under the new “automatic” rules — and gone after Grossman, who to that point had struck out twice and walked.

The situation sort of came to fruition after Rosario’s bunt, but ultimately Strahm lost the zone. After Dozier was granted first on the intentional walk, Strahm missed with four straight pitches to force home the go-ahead run with Grossman at the plate. That brought in Peter Moylan, who fanned Buxton on a 2-2 pitch for the second out. That was his entire work day — six pitches — as Ned Yost then went to Travis Wood, whose Royals debut was forgettable. Wood immediately walked Mauer and Sano to plate a pair of runs. Then, he gave up Castro’s second hit of the day to give the Twins a 6-1 lead in front of a raucous Target Field crowd. Polanco followed by going with an away pitch into right field to score Sano and cap the scoring at 7-1, as Belisle and Kintzler came in and quietly worked a pair of scoreless innings to cap the win.   

Even in a big win, the Twins did some little things right — even late in the game with a big lead — that show this team is taking the fundamentals seriously

Perez opened the second inning for the Royals with a solid single between third and short on a full count pitch. That brought up Moss, who rapped into a 6-4-3 double play started by Polanco, who barely had to move to field the grounder in the first place. For a team that worked on positioning and defense all spring training, it seems likely that Polanco was placed in exactly the right spot by the coaching staff.

On the Castro single that gave the Twins a 6-1 lead in the seventh, Sano alertly moved from second to third on the throw home from Gordon. That allowed him to score on Polanco’s easily on Polanco’s single. It’s not a huge deal, but it’s small things like that which weren’t done last year — much to Molitor’s continued angst.  

Opening Day was a rousing success

The Twins got a win on the first day of the Falvey-Levine regime, and the stadium was jam-packed with 39,615 fans who were sent home happy with an off-day before the series resumes. It’s obviously early, but there seems to be a much better energy or vibe around this team.

Notes

  • This marked the Twins’ first win on Opening Day since 2008 against the Los Angeles Angels.
  • This was the Twins’ first win in a Home Opener since 2011 (2-1 over the A’s).
  • The Twins improved to 31-26 all-time in season openers and 3-5 in home openers at Target Field.
  • This marked the 160th sellout in Target Field history and eighth since the start of the 2015 season.
  • Sano also homered in the season finale, and has homers in two straight games for the 12th time in his career.
  • The Royals fell to 17-32 all-time in season openers, including 5-19 on the road.

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