CHICAGO — Noted poet Don McLean said it best when he wrote the following words back in 1971.
“Helter skelter in a summer swelter…
The birds flew off with a fallout shelter.”
The Minnesota Twins’ 14-9 loss to the Chicago Cubs at Wrigley Field on Saturday featured 10 pitchers, 342 pitches, four players removed from the game due to “heat-related illness,” two outfielders who were very much out of place and also a flock of gulls who descended upon the friendly confines as the late innings trudged on.
Perhaps it’s no coincidence that the Twins unraveled from that point on as well?
For the second day in a row, the fifth inning was the primary culprit. This time around, it lasted 53 minutes as the teams combined for nine runs.
Eddie Rosario left the game during that dreaded fifth as the first player felled by the heat. Cubs center fielder Albert Almora Jr. came later in the inning, after insisting to manager Joe Maddon that he was able to stay in. He made it as far as second base before he was pinch run for by pitcher Mike Montgomery.
Rosario leaving led to a memorable debut for Willians Astudillo. More on that later.
The cumulative effect of the fifth inning was felt for the rest of the day. Bobby Wilson left the game after rounding the bases following a walk in the sixth inning. Max Kepler left after the top of the eighth.
In total, four players — one Cub, three Twins — fell prey to temperatures that reached as high as 96 degrees with a heat index of 107.
Here’s what we saw from our vantage point
Win probability table
Source: FanGraphs
It was really (redacted) hot
This is the temperature on the field, and as a result, it’s no surprise that players had to leave due to the conditions. It wasn’t for lack of preparation, either; Wilson said he drank eight bottles of water on Friday night and four more Saturday morning before the game.
The conditions were just that bad.
Wilson also said he never had problems such as this in Texas — where he played with the Rangers from 2015-16 — and that this was one of the hottest games he’s ever played in.
Astudillo simply stated “Si” — Spanish for ‘yes’ — when asked if this was the hottest game he could recall playing.
Kepler and Rosario did not speak to the media after the game, but both were seen milling around in the clubhouse afterward. Kepler was grabbing a bite to eat, while Rosario had responded fairly well to intravenous fluids, manager Paul Molitor said.
Adalberto Mejia was not long for the game
Mejia lasted just four innings before Robbie Grossman took over as a pinch hitter in the top of the fifth. The Twins engineered a double switch in the bottom half — the first of many moves on the day — by putting Grossman in right field, moving Kepler to center and taking Jake Cave out of the game.
Cave had made an incredible diving catch against Almora earlier in the day — one that the batter doffed his helmet to show his appreciation for the effort.
Mejia allowed nine baserunners in four innings, a tight-rope act that he was only able to maintain through two scoreless innings before the Cubs broke through in the third.
For the second day in a row, the Twins took a 3-0 lead. For the second day in a row, they coughed it back up.
The Twins scored their three runs on a Joe Mauer bases-clearing double in the second innings — after Mejia took Cubs starter Tyler Chatwood to eight pitches in the previous plate appearance — while Chicago answered the way they did all day.
Death by paper cuts.
Mejia was singled to death in the third inning, as five of the first six batters in the inning singled. In fact, it was a nice running catch by Cave in the opposite gap from where he robbed Almora later in the game where he this time took a hit away from Addison Russell, and threw back to second to clean up Mejia’s mess by doubling off Anthony Rizzo.
The Cubs touched Mejia up for another run in the fourth as Almora hit a sac fly to score David Bote, who had walked, advanced to second on a sacrifice bunt and third on a wild pitch.
Mejia was taken off the hook when the Twins pushed across four runs in their part of an absurd fifth inning, but it doesn’t change the fact that he didn’t pitch all that well.
Mejia had a respectable nine swinging strikes on his 79 pitches, but couldn’t put hitters away as he had just one strikeout, and Molitor said it was largely due to the fact that his breaking stuff was inconsistent.
“It seemed like they were able to lay off almost all of his off-speed pitches because of a lack of consistency,” Molitor said. “So they were dialed into the fastball. It’s almost like they eliminated those pitches early in the count and forced him to throw a fastball over.
“I thought he competed OK. The inning they started, we didn’t cover first as well as he could, he seemed to hesitate a little bit and with a leadoff hitter, it’s always a bad start to give him 90 feet to start the inning. He had to get an out on that ball.”
Chatwood was as advertised
Keep in mind this is a pitcher who has allowed more walks (66) this season than hits (62), and it’s easy to see how the Twins made him work through his five innings on Saturday.
He did issue just three walks, but he never seemed truly in command of the strike zone, despite throwing 64 of his 103 pitches for strikes. As a result, the Twins knocked him around to the tune of seven earned runs, pushing his ERA to 4.54 on the season after he entered the game at 3.95.
How uncharacteristic has Chatwood’s command been? His 66 walks this year — in roughly half a season — was a number touched by only 17 pitchers all last season. That’s all of 2017, mind you.
Chatwood has tremendous stuff — including a fastball that hits 95 mph and a good curveball — and gets grounders by the bucketload, but this many walks won’t work for anyone. He’s also on a three-year deal, so there’s no end in sight for the Cubs.
Trevor Hildenberger had a nightmare appearance
After Matt Belisle spent most of the top of the seventh inning warming, Hildenberger seemed like a little bit of a surprise when the gate opened from the Twins bullpen. Nevertheless, the sidearm slinger who hadn’t allowed an earned run in over a month — May 18 against the Milwaukee Brewers — came on to attempt to preserve a 9-9 tie.
In case you were unaware, the bullpens are no longer in plain sight at Wrigley Field, but instead obscured by the outfield walls in right for the visitors and left for the home team.
Hildenberger started with a walk to Bote and a double by Ian Happ. Then, Hildenberger issued an intentional walk to pinch hitter Kyle Schwarber. The Twins pulled the infield in with the bases loaded and no one out, and Jason Heyward stroked a single to left, just past the outstretched glove of Ehire Adrianza at short, to drive home Bote and move everyone up a station.
Javier Baez followed with a two-run double to center — off Adrianza’s glove — and the Cubs led, 12-9. Rizzo was then intentionally walked to load the bases again. Catcher Willson Contreras hit a sac fly to drive home Heyward, and Addison Russell followed with a single.
The damage on Hildenberger’s ledger? Nine batters faced, one out recorded, five earned runs, four walks and four hits allowed. His ERA is up to 3.18 after coming into the game at 2.06.
Eight of the nine Twins runs scored with two outs
If there was any sort of positive to be gleaned from the performance, it’s that the Twins offense finally showed for a second day that it can score some runs. Rosario popped a two-run homer in the fifth inning while Mauer’s double in the second came with two outs as well.
What was truly odd about the game was that despite there being 31 hits, there were just four doubles and the one home run. With the temperatures being what they were and the wind blowing out, that just seems….surprising?
Astudillo’s debut was….certainly memorable
Astudillo entered in the fifth when Rosario came out of the game. He handled his first chance flawlessly — he’s a catcher by trade, if anyone wasn’t aware — and also, well, poked the first pitch he saw in the big leagues for a game-tying single.
It’s hard to explain, so just watch:
Molitor said after the game that he thought maybe Baez was in position for some sort of back pick play at second base with Grossman running, but nevertheless, Astudillo pinballed it into center to tie the game, 9-9.
Sure the hit was great, but how about the 5-foot-9, 225-pound lug trying something even more challenging — defending center field?
That’s where he wound up with Kepler leaving the game due to the heat, as the Twins were one of the worst defensive outfields in club history:
- LF – Logan Morrison
- CF – Astudillo
- RF – Grossman
So what did Astudillo enjoy more — playing center or getting his first hit?
“Both were exciting, he said after the game. “There’s nothing else I can say about that. It’s just great to be here.”
Astudillo had to borrow Rosario’s glove, because his outfield glove was up in the clubhouse — some 30 steps or so up the tunnel — and he didn’t have time to retrieve it.
Astudillo also said he has played center before. “Just in Venezuela five or six times,” he said.
The fifth inning was the inning from hell for Wilson
This was something brought up by Dan Hayes of The Athletic during postgame discussions with the writers. In the fifth inning, Wilson caught eight warmup pitches from both Addison Reed and Zach Duke — so 16, if you’re counting at home, and please do — and then caught 26 pitches from Reed and 24 from Duke before getting out of the inning.
That’s 50 in-game pitches and a total of 66 throws of some type that Wilson had to crouch for. There’s little surprise why he was absolutely gassed when he came out of the game in the middle of the sixth inning.
Wilson drew a walk in the top half of the inning, and that’s where things started to get hazy for him.
“I just couldn’t catch my breath. My heart was fluttering. I felt dizzy. Started getting a headache. Just felt like a long time out there and trying to rush out to the box to get a hit and, of course, having that at-bat and tagging from first and tagging from second and tagging from third.
“(I) just couldn’t even hold a conversation in the dugout,” Wilson added. “They just wanted me to get looked at. Saw the doctors. One of those days. Hot, long innings. That’s never happened to me before.”
After walking, Wilson didn’t remember much.
“I don’t really remember to be honest,” Wilson said when asked about how tough it was to get around the bases. “I just know I got on base and just kind of Mollie and them coming out and talking. I was pretty dizzy at that point. I know I walked. I know I got on base and touched the pillows a couple of times and scored a run. I don’t really remember that too much.”
This isn’t something one might expect from Wilson, who not only has played in hot weather but lives in it.
“(I’ve) played in Texas. (I) live in Florida,” Wilson noted. “I don’t whether it’s possibly some of the medication I take that possibly contributed to it. I felt Mitch (Garver) had to go in there. You never want to come out of a game but it was kind of a ruling from Tony I was done.”
In all, 18 of the 25 active Twins players appeared in the game
In addition to every position player on the roster appearing in the game, the Twins used five pitchers — as pitchers, that is — and Zach Duke even hit for himself late in the game.
Also, the final out was made on a grounder back to the pitcher by Jake Odorizzi, who batted for reliever Matt Belisle to wrap up the game.
The Cubs reached base an astonishing 27 times…
But other than three doubles, it was all singles (17) or walks (seven), which left them running the bases in conga line fashion. In the fifth inning alone, the Cubs went first-to-third five times.
In fact, it would have been six times if Almora hadn’t convinced Maddon to let him stay in the game. Almora moved to second — albeit gingerly — on the Heyward single to center that followed, and was lifted for the pinch runner at that point.
The Twins simply couldn’t keep the Cubs off the bases — extra-base hits or otherwise.
…but a lot of it was bloops and bleeders, just perfectly placed
The fifth inning was the biggest example of this phenomena, as the Cubs had seven singles in the inning interspersed with a sacrifice fly.
Here are the hit probabilities of the balls hit in the fifth inning (via Baseball Savant):
This has the first seven of the inning, with the final ball — Heyward’s single to score Happ carrying a hit probability of 40 percent.
It was just one of those days, though it’s starting to feel like one of many on the way to just one of those years.
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Notes
- Sunday’s pitching matchup will be the toughest of the series for the Twins, as they take on lefty Jon Lester. The Twins will counter with Lance Lynn. Lynn was very, very good in June (2.83 ERA, 9.7 K/9, 1.26 WHIP), but Lester was even better (1.13 ERA, 5.6 K/9, 0.84 WHIP). First pitch will be at 1:20 p.m.
- Here are the pitching matchups for the upcoming Brewers series according to ESPN:
- Kyle Gibson vs. Brent Suter – Monday, 7:10 p.m.
- Jake Odorizzi vs. Junior Guerra – Tuesday, 3:10 p.m.
- Jose Berrios vs. Chase Anderson – Wednesday, 3:10 p.m.
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