For a few fleeting moments, the Minnesota Twins enjoyed a 2-0 lead on the Texas Rangers and their grizzled veteran righty, Yovani Gallardo. Joe Mauer walked and Eddie Rosario homered to give the Twins a quick 2-0 lead with nobody out in the first inning.
Then, like a piano falling out of a third-story window, everything came to a crashing halt as Jake Odorizzi gave the lead back three-fold on the way to a 9-6 loss at Target Field on Saturday.
In all, Odorizzi actually gave up more earned runs (six) than he recorded outs (five).
The Rangers did all of their damage in the second, third and fourth innings, putting up six against Odorizzi in the second, two more in the third against reliever Matt Magill and one more against him in the fourth before the rest of the bullpen clamped down to try to allow the offense to get back into the game in the later innings
It nearly worked, as the game ended with the tying run on first base before Rangers closer Keone Kela fanned Logan Morrison swinging to end the threat.
Here’s what we saw from our vantage point
Win probability table
Source: FanGraphs
Odorizzi didn’t have it, to put it delicately…
This is bound to be true anytime a pitcher doesn’t even finish two innings, but Odorizzi threw 42 pitches in the second inning, which is what prompted manager Paul Molitor to go get him after just 60 pitches — the same number Magill ended up throwing.
“Nothing changed in the second inning,” Odorizzi said. “I sucked. We’ll move on.”
Three of Odorizzi’s five outs came via the strikeout and he managed an excellent 11 swinging strikes — seven on the four-seamer, three on the split and one on his slider — but everything else was just all over the place.
Here’s his scatter plot from Brooks Baseball:
As you can see, there are a lot of 1’s out of the zone. Only six of the 13 batters Odorizzi faced saw first-pitch strikes. In that case, he still managed to throw 39 strikes against 21 balls — so he had to come back into the zone, where he then gave up six hits. Add to that a walk, and it’s easy to see how it got out of hand, and quickly.
“But you know, it just started to unravel,” Molitor said of the second inning for Odorizzi. “A couple guys got on, then he slipped on the mound, then he hit a guy and even later in the inning after he’d given up some, we still had chances. He got ahead of (Nomar) Mazara 0-2, Beltre he got ahead of, but we just couldn’t finish.
“Given the state of your bullpen you never really want to have a guy exit too early if you can prevent it. I know people get a little antsy when you leave someone out there, trying to find a way through it. But it just got to a point where it reached I think 40-plus pitches there. Not only at risk to him but it was time to try to find a way if we could get seven-plus innings out of the bullpen.”
Molitor said he realized Odorizzi was frustrated as well, but he felt like he had to go get him.
“I’m sure he’s frustrated,” Molitor said. “I think part of those guys that you know are team-centered, they feel the disappointment of letting their teammates down and putting them in precarious positions. I think that, whether it’s an encouraging word when he walks through the clubhouse or get a chance to speak with him tomorrow, you can’t sulk too long because it just doesn’t work. You come back ready to do your work tomorrow, start preparing for your next start.”
Whenever that start comes up — most likely on the south side of Chicago late next week — Odorizzi will head into it with an ERA of 4.97.
That’s the highest it has been all season.
….frankly, neither did Gallardo…
He managed to pitch into the sixth inning, but he was far from overpowering as he allowed six hits, four earned runs and a pair of homers with three strikeouts and two walks.
Gallardo, who entered with a season ERA of 15.95 and an opponents’ slash line of .389/.488/.667 — is the kind of pitcher the Twins should be all over. Granted, those numbers are from just 7 2/3 innings, but Gallardo hasn’t been an effective major-league starter since his first go-round with the Rangers back in 2015.
Instead, Gallardo kept the Twins off-balance with a mix of mostly two-seam fastballs, with a steady secondary blend of four-seam heaters, changeups, sliders and curves. The change (three) and slider (two) were the only pitches he threw with more than one swinging strike, and he managed to skate by despite getting nine of his outs in the air.
Again, this is probably more emblematic of where this Twins offense is right now.
…nor did Matt Moore, the deposed Rangers starter who helped the Twins get back in the game
Moore — the once-electric Rays lefty who lost large portions of his early career to arm injuries — came in with a 7.63 ERA and a WHIP of 1.97. Translated: He’s pitched nearly 60 innings, and allowed nearly 120 baserunners.
Yeesh.
Moore avoided trouble in the seventh and eighth, and began but did not finish a third inning as the Twins got to him. Max Kepler opened the inning with a grounder to second, but Mitch Garver — who had three hits on the day — singled up the middle. Ryan LaMarre and Joe Mauer followed with singles, and by that point, manager Jeff Banister had seen enough.
Kela came on and worked around a two-run double to seal the deal, but Moore still can’t seem to get out of his own way this year.
Jurickson Profar had…..a strange day
Odorizzi hit Profar with a first-pitch splitter in the disastrous second inning — this is good evidence of Odorizzi’s scattershot command on the day — to load the bases with nobody out and nobody (yet) in.
In the fourth inning with two outs, Profar was hit by a Magill fastball on the first pitch he saw. He promptly stole second — with the Rangers up by seven runs — but did not score when Ronald Guzman struck out swinging.
It seems pretty clear the Twins took exception to him stealing with his team up seven runs, and in the seventh inning, Addison Reed was tasked with doling out some Wild West justice — which took three pitches.
The message seems pretty clear, however:
The Rangers didn’t take kindly to it — Banister was shown on the monitor saying what appeared to be ‘Really?’ toward the Twins dugout — but that is pretty much where it ended.
Sunday might be a different story.
Profar tied the Rangers team record for times hit by a pitch in a game, a record he was previously a part of when it happened June 9 against the Astros last season.
Rosario did more Rosario things
Rosario not only hit the homer, but was responsible for the two-run double down the left-field line in the ninth inning against Kela — with the runs charged to Moore — to make things interesting.
Rosario has separated himself as the Twins’ clear-cut All-Star representative — assuming they only get one — this July as he’s pulled away a bit from Eduardo Escobar in recent days. Rosario is hitting a blistering .317/.355/.582 on the season, and the home run was his 17th of the year.
At this pace, if he matches last season’s 589 plate appearances, he’d have 33 home runs for a full season. That’s six more than his career-high 27 last year.
He can probably start looking at flights to Washington, D.C.
The rest of the bullpen had a fine day…
It’s really small consolation when the team trailed 9-2 at one point, but Ryan Pressly, Reed, Zach Duke and Trevor Hildenberger combined for four shutout innings with three strikeouts and just one baserunner allowed.
More encouraging yet was that Pressly and Reed had clean innings after scuffling a bit of late. Duke and Hildenberger have both been solid, and frankly, Magill eating up 3.1 innings and 60 pitches — even with two homers and three earned runs allowed — should not be overlooked.
“Magill, one day rest after almost 30 pitches somehow gave us the length that he did,” Molitor said. “And we just tried to figure out how to get through the rest of the game. We narrowed it down to a number where the position player question was eliminated. We even found a way to get the winning run up to the plate there in the ninth. But you get behind 9-2 early, it’s going to be an uphill fight for sure.”
…but using up five relievers meant the Twins needed to make a move after the game
The Twins sent Friday’s starter Fernando Romero to Triple-A Rochester after the game, and the expectation is that reliever Alan Busenitz will join the team for the homestand finale on Sunday.
The move is expected to be temporary.
“We’re going to option Romero down to Rochester just briefly,” Molitor said. “There’s been a lot of good things for him. A young man who’s still learning how to use his skills at the best level up here and learning control of the game.
Romero spoke with the media briefly after finding out.
“I mean, there’s no sorry. (It’s) just something that happens in baseball,” he said. “At some point, you’re not waiting for it, but all you have to do is handle the situation and get back to work. I’ll be back as soon as possible. As soon as they give me the chance again, I’ll get it back.”
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Notes
- Joey Gallo left the game with hamstring tightness after his third-inning double snapped an 0-for-16 stretch.
- The Twins fell to 19-20 at Target Field with the loss.
- The loss was the Twins’ 40th of the year. They lost their 40th game last season on July 2.
- Rosario is hitting .354 since May 1, according to the game notes.
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