For seven innings, Chicago White Sox righty Reynaldo Lopez had the Minnesota Twins completely tongue-tied.
But when he gave way to Nate Jones in the eighth inning, it breathed a little life into a listless Twins offense.
Not right away, however. Jones got the first two outs before Brian Dozier stepped to the plate. Dozier ripped a ball that Yolmer Sanchez couldn’t handle at third for an infield single – just the Twins’ second hit of the day.
Eddie Rosario followed with a walk — though he didn’t seem too happy about it — to put runners on first and second. Miguel Sano worked a full count, then ripped a single into left to put runners on the corners.
Gregorio Petit replaced Sano as a pinch runner at first — but it hardly mattered — as Eduardo Escobar crushed the fifth pitch he saw, a 1-2 two-seamer right down the middle, onto the berm in center field as an otherwise docile crowd erupted for the first time all day long as the Twins took a 4-2 lead.
Fernando Rodney came on for a perfect ninth, and the Twins stole the game from the White Sox — their fourth win in a row — to improve to 26-30 on the season.
“(I) kind of feel like we stole one a little bit, given the fact that we didn’t have much going the entire game,” manager Paul Molitor said.
Here’s what we saw from our vantage point
Fernando Romero wasn’t perfect for the Twins — but he was pretty darn good
This was Romero’s first start without issuing a walk — both in the big leagues but also in the minors — this season.
“Well, that happened just attacking the zone,” Romero said. “Just throwing the ball all over the plate. Let it hit. If not, you get off the home plate.”
The beginning of his afternoon looked awfully similar to last time out in Kansas City — Yoan Moncada opened the game with a homer on the second pitch he saw — but after that, Romero more or less settled down to hold the White Sox at bay while Lopez did the same to his comrades.
“Ah, control myself a little bit,” Romero said about settling down after the Moncada homer. “Calm down and attack the zone. That helps me more.”
Romero hung around for six innings, allowing two earned runs on seven hits with four strikeouts. He had a solid 14 swinging strikes on his 93 pitches, and lowered his season ERA back under 4.00 (3.96) after the Royals got to him at Kauffman Stadium last week.
“He’s had some games where he’s pitched really well and hasn’t turned out with the win,” Molitor said after the game. “But it was important for him to come back after the last outing and reestablish what he can do here.”
Romero checked in as high as 97.9 mph on his four-seam fastball (average: 95.6) and 96.6 on his two-seamer, and seven of his 14 swinging strikes — according to Brooks Baseball — came on the slider (25.9 percent). Six came on the four-seamer (15.8 percent) and one on the two-seamer (7.1 percent).
For a point of reference, around 10 percent is the league average, though it’s lower than that for fastballs and higher for breaking and offspeed stuff.
The Twins offense couldn’t solve Lopez at all…
Lopez allowed just one hit — the fewest he’s allowed in his 25 big-league starts — and four walks while stymying the Twins offense for seven innings.
Lopez only had four strikeouts, but managed to get 12 swinging strikes — seven on his four-seam fastball, five on his slider — while pumping some serious heat at Twins hitters. He was as high as 99.2 mph on his four-seam fastball.
“I thought he, as far as pitching against this team, I think he followed a pretty good plan,” Molitor said after the game. “He kind of knew when to elevate with the fastball, which hit 98 at times, and he knew our guys that were chasing the slider. He pitched with whatever information they had pretty well to attack our hitters.”
“Other than Esco’s double early in the game, we didn’t do much,” Molitor continued. “We didn’t hit too many hard. (Ryan) LaMarre hit one hard to left, other than that, we got a lot of popups. I don’t know how many strikeouts we had.”
As some of the reporters said in the elevator down to the clubhouse between games, this could be a really, really fun matchup for years to come.
Escobar was the only exception, really…
Escobar’s homer against Jones was especially sweet, not only because he first came to the big leagues with the White Sox, but because he and Jones were minor-league teammates. They were teammates in Kannapolis (Low-A) in 2008 and ‘09 as well as Winston-Salem (High-A) in 2010.
Escobar finished the game 2-for-4 with half of the Twins’ hits — and both of their extra-base hits — and he had a little fun with it in his postgame comments, as seen above.
He’s filled in wonderfully for Sano and Jorge Polanco this year with a slash line of .271/.323/.531, 11 homers and 22 doubles.
Tyler Duffey deserves more credit than he’ll get
Duffey has been absolutely brilliant in Rochester this year — 1.50 ERA, 0.83 WHIP, 9.4 K/9, 2.6 BB/9 — but came in with a big-league ERA that was more likely to be the prefix of a sketchy dial-in service (8.64).
He came into the game with the Twins trailing 2-0 after six innings, and promptly pitched two clean frames with a pair of strikeouts and just one hit allowed, bringing his ERA down to 6.97.
“Bullpen come get me real quick,” Romero said of the relief corps’ efforts. “They did a hell of a job. Tyler Duffey, woof. He comes, picks me up, and it was good.”
Coming off an off-day and with another game yet to be played, Duffey made Molitor’s bullpen management awfully easy in the first half of the twinbill.
In fact, if the Twins hadn’t taken the lead in the eighth, Molitor confirmed he’d have brought Duffey back in for a third inning.
Moncada had a whale of a ballgame for the White Sox
Not only did he open up with a bomb to the berm in center, but he added a single and a stolen base later in the game. He’s been a bit of a slow burn to start his career as an uber-prospect, but he’s now hitting .247/.326/.448 while showing why he was a key part of the deal that sent Chris Sale to Boston.
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Notes
- The leadoff homer Romero allowed was the first yielded by a Twins pitcher since Seth Smith took Felix Jorge deep on July 7, 2017.
- Dozier stole second base in the sixth inning to pass Larry Hisle for ninth on the Twins’ all-time stolen base list (93).
- Rodney needs one more save to tie Robb Nen for 21st on the MLB’s all-time list (314).
- Escobar’s double against Lopez gave him 22 for the season, tying him with Jose Abreu for the MLB lead.
- The White Sox have lost six of their last eight games and 22 of their last 33.
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