After winning just one game in the last 12, the Minnesota Twins needed a shot in the arm in the worst way.
Enter Fernando Romero, the energetic 23-year-old righty who barely had time to find a place to live in Rochester before finding himself pitching on the big stage.
Before the game, Jose Berrios told Zone Coverage, “This kid’s gonna be good. We’re excited.”
Romero was certainly the panacea to the Twins’ problems — at least for this day. Romero tossed 5.2 scoreless innings, fanning five Blue Jays and walking three to outduel Marcus Stroman as Minnesota beat Toronto 4-0 in front of a modest crowd at Target Field on getaway day.
After Romero departed, the sagging Twins bullpen found its footing, as Trevor Hildenberger, Zach Duke, Addison Reed and Fernando Rodney combined for 10 outs, just two hits allowed and four strikeouts in the team’s first shutout of the season.
Here’s what we saw from our vantage point:
Romero was brilliant — all things considered
Maybe his final line doesn’t necessarily do him justice, as Romero went back out for the sixth against 3-4-5 and got the first two quickly before Kevin Pillar walked. That impressive show of confidence from his manager tells the story of how good Romero was, however, as Paul Molitor has been fairly consistent with going and getting his starters early in their third trip through the order so far this season.
“It was a special day that won’t soon be forgotten,” Molitor said. “We talked about it before the game. You want to see how he handles the warm-up, the first inning and all those sorts of things. It was good.
“We got him a couple runs. He had some baserunners; it wasn’t a perfect day for him. We know that sometimes command is going to be a bit iffy, but as you can see the stuff is alive and had a lot of people uncomfortable in the batter’s box.”
Molitor said there was some discussion about whether or not to send Romero back out there for the sixth — the team was up 2-0 but still lacking that knockout punch they haven’t been able to find for quite some time, and Hildenberger was ready to come in — but ultimately, the rookie more or less rewarded his skipper’s confidence.
“We talked about it,” Molitor said. “I think getting the double play to end the fifth (helped). We were looking at pitches and where he was getting to. I don’t think he had thrown more than 90 pitches this year. The way it was set up with the hitters coming up, I thought velocity still played, so we went ahead and tried him in the sixth until he walked Pillar with two outs.”
Romero’s final line was 5.2 scoreless innings with four hits, five strikeouts, three walks and 59 strikes on 97 pitches. ESPN.com had Romero with 12 swinging strikes — a very, very solid number — and that number was corroborated by Brooks Baseball. They had Romero with five swinging strikes on his two-seam fastball (11.4 percent), two on his four-seamer (10.5 percent), one on his changeup (11.1 percent) and four on his slider (16 percent).
Those are all brilliant marks. Brooks also had Romero’s two-seamer averaging 96.1 mph (98.8 peak), four-seamer averaging 96.3 (97.9), his changeup averaging 91.4 (94.5) and his slider averaging 87.5 (89.8).
Oh, and eight of the 11 batted balls he allowed were grounders.
Whoa.
Romero said he didn’t feel too much pressure despite how the team had been playing of late. “Not really,” Romero said when asked. “I’ve been feeling like it’s normal.”
Stroman wasn’t too bad, either
The diminutive righty came in with an ERA of all eights, but went seven innings of two-run ball with five strikeouts and a walk. The only real damage he had was a homer by Eddie Rosario to the bullpens in the second inning.
Nine of the 16 batted balls Stroman allowed were grounders, and in general, he looked like himself after five rough starts to open the season. He was also an interesting contrast to Romero, who pitched well but needed to be lifted in the sixth as he approached 100 pitches. Stroman, on the other hand, was more economical with his pitch count, and completed seven innings — four more outs than Romero did.
He’ll get Seattle at home next time out.
We need to nickname the right-field corner after Eduardo Escobar
Escobar roped yet another double into the right-field corner, and it seems like that’s where pretty much all of them go — almost like a cookie cutter was used. There’s a Pesky’s Pole in Boston, why not something with Esky’s (fill in the blank)? Esky’s Hole doesn’t sound quite right, but…….we should be able to come up with something.
Here’s a look at his current spray chart courtesy of Fangraphs:
Source: FanGraphs
The bullpen looked really good — probably because it was able to be aligned properly
Hildenberger came in with a runner on — though it was with two outs, but he’s usually good at erasing them with grounders — and needed just two pitches to get the out he was tasked with.
Not bad work if you can get it.
Zach Duke looked solid coming into the seventh inning with a pair of strikeouts after a Kendrys Morales single the other way, and continues to prove he’s not just a lefty specialist. Addison Reed had a clean inning where he faced the minimum thanks to a strange decision by Teoscar Hernandez to try to steal second, and Fernando Rodney looked good with a four-run lead in the ninth.
That’s how they draw ’em up, folks.
Call it correlation or causation, but the Blue Jays had very few good swings in this one
Aledmys Diaz had the game’s only extra-base hit for Toronto — a double in the fifth — but that was it as Romero and friends kept the Jays off balance all afternoon. Even in the fifth when the Jays mounted a threat as Romero hit Granderson with a pitch after the Diaz double, the young flamethrower rebounded to get a double play off the bat of Hernandez to end the inning.
It was an interesting clash of styles for the Twins pitching staff today, as Romero threw gas, Hildenberger and Duke bring funky angles and location, Reed is a step ahead of them velo-wise and then Rodney gets back to the gas.
Almost like a couple peaks with a valley in the middle. Not bad.
Of all the things Rosario is, he is probably the most exciting position player the Twins have right now
His game lacks polish, but with Byron Buxton and Miguel Sano out, Rosario is capable of splash plays on all sides of the ball. His home run the other way over Kevin Pillar was an absolute bomb, and there’s nary a pitch he’s unable to get the bat to — for better or worse. For now, the Twins need him to be good Eddie while the team waits out the injuries to Sano and Buxton and even the suspension to Jorge Polanco, too.
Joe Mauer got on base twice
Don’t look now, but the Twins have a chance to turn things around here
The White Sox are just 8-20, and if that isn’t enough, they may be without uber-prospect Yoan Moncada, who left Wednesday’s game against the St. Louis Cardinals with a tight left hamstring — not too dissimilar from the Sano injury.
Moncada has been one of the few bright spots for the White Sox so far this season, hitting .268/.359/.518 while playing solid defense with four stolen bases as well. If the 22-year-old can’t go, the White Sox offense is that much more vulnerable.
Here are the projected pitching matchups for the series:
- Thursday – Jake Odorizzi (3.94 ERA/5.82 FIP) vs. Reynaldo Lopez (1.89 ERA/4.49 FIP)
- Friday – Jose Berrios (3.63 ERA/2.82 FIP) vs. Carson Fulmer (4.32 ERA/5.09 FIP)
- Saturday – Lance Lynn (8.37 ERA/6.63 FIP) vs. Hector Santiago (3.48 ERA/4.86 FIP)
- Sunday – Kyle Gibson (3.38 ERA/3.42 FIP) vs. James Shields (5.35 ERA/4.72 FIP)
Advantage – Twins, but just barely.
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Notes
- If everything remains on the current path, Romero’s second start will come in St. Louis, on ESPN against Cardinals ace Carlos Martinez next Monday. That would be terrific.
- The Twins are just 2-11 in their last 13 games.
- Romero’s 98 mph pitch in the first inning was the fastest thrown by a Twin this year.
- Escobar’s double in the sixth extended his hitting streak to nine games.
- Mauer has reached base safely in 22 of 25 games.
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