Jose Berrios isn’t right. He hasn’t been right since dominating in his homeland of Puerto Rico two starts ago.
Paul Molitor knew it right away.
In fact, rather than delay the inevitable, the veteran manager gave his talented youngster a quick hook, opting to rely on his beleaguered bullpen to cobble together the final six innings. In lieu of putting Berrios through the meat grinder, Molitor instead turned to Taylor Rogers, newcomer Matt Magill and Tyler Duffey to soak it up on the way to an 8-2 loss to the Cincinnati Reds.
The Twins dropped two of three to the Reds, but it’s arguably the ugliest series to date this season. Sure, the Rays came in just five wins on the season before sweeping the Twins last weekend, but at the very least that was a road series. And besides, the Rays are 8-1 since that series started — suddenly 12-14 after such a brutal start.
The Twins also dropped four games in a row in the Bronx, including the fourth one on a gut-wrenching walk-off homer by Gary Sanchez. But let’s be honest, dropping four games in a row to the Yankees barely moves the needle at this point.
They own the Twins.
But dropping two of three to the Reds? Losing in horrific fashion in the opener after chasing a starter in the second inning, followed by falling to a youngster making just his ninth MLB start in the finale?
The Reds came in 5-20 and left 7-21. And if you aren’t sure how it happened, frankly I’m not convinced the Twins are either.
Here’s what we saw from our vantage point:
Tyler Mahle had the Twins eating out of the palm of his hand
Mahle might not be a household name, but he’s by no means a nobody. He came into the year a top-100 prospect on MLB.com — in fact, he reached the innings threshold for graduation, bumping Twins shortstop prospect Wander Javier into the updated list — and he’s been pretty good to this point through six starts this season.
Mahle has a 4.32 ERA following this start, but he allowed just one earned run on four hits over 6.1 innings on Sunday. The Twins only had two hits through five innings — both by Eduardo Escobar — as Mahle fanned seven batters against two walks. He doesn’t throw particularly hard (92.7 mph average), but he can get swinging strikes on his slider (14.1 percent) and changeup (14.9), and it was his fastball that gave the Twins fits on Sunday. The MLB data was wonky Sunday, but at least seven of his 10 swinging strikes came on the four-seam fastball. It was a really, really nice outing for the 23-year-old righty.
The Reds have a reliever named Amir Garrett, and if you aren’t wearing your glasses, you might think he’s the second coming of Aroldis Chapman
Garrett runs 6-foot-5 — about an inch taller than Chapman — but he works in a way that looks eerily reminiscent of the former Reds closer. Garrett was a non-entity last year in his age-25 season as mostly a starter for the Reds — 7.39 ERA/FIP in 70.2 innings — but has turned over a new leaf out of the bullpen.
Through 15.1 innings, Garrett has fanned 16 batters against just two walks and has allowed just three earned runs (1.76 ERA). Now he doesn’t exactly reach triple digits like Chapman does with regularity, but Garrett averaged 95.7 mph on his four-seamer and peaked at 96.8 in his two-thirds of an inning of work.
Berrios was a mess
Berrios came in averaging just a touch over 94 mph on his fastball — per Brooks Baseball — but the Gameday logs showed zero instances of a fastball at that mark on Sunday. He did have one 93.9 mph heater that I saw, but otherwise, he sat closer to 92-93 with a few 91s in there near the end of his day.
It might have been puzzling to see Berrios get the gate after just three innings and four earned runs allowed, but in all honesty, he was about to start a third time through the order, and nothing in the first two trips provided any promise. For the third time in his MLB career and the first time since last August against the Detroit Tigers, Berrios did not fan a batter and ESPN.com had him with just four swinging strikes on 60 pitches.
A respectable rate is around 10 percent; you need not be a real math whiz to see it wasn’t there for Berrios on Sunday.
“It just seemed like he was really struggling to try get the ball where he wanted to,” Molitor said. “He was losing a lot of pitches to the arm side — both the fastball and the breaking ball. I tried to let him find it a little bit, but after three innings and getting off the field on a sharply hit ball there at the end of the third, I just didn’t think it’d be there.”
Molitor was asked if he thought anything was going on with Berrios physically — related to his velocity being down — but the manager flatly denied anything to that effect.
Duffey was sent out after the game; Rogers may not be far behind
Duffey gave up a home run on the fourth pitch he threw — a long bomb to left by Adam Duvall — but otherwise settled down to give the Twins three innings of relief to finish the game. The final damage was three innings, just the one earned run and three hits with three strikeouts.
After the game, manager Paul Molitor intimated that a roster move could be coming, but stopped short of announcing one.
As reporters waited in the clubhouse to talk to Magill after Berrios spoke, Duffey came out of the manager’s office and loudly slammed on a door leading to the kitchen area at the back of the clubhouse. When he returned, he took off his belt and flipped it into his locker, took off his game pants and threw them in the hamper and began packing a bag with gloves and cleats — more or less signaling that he was headed back to Rochester.
The Twins announced the move 10 minutes later.
To be totally fair to Duffey, it’s unclear where his frustration was being directed. Even after the three strong innings of relief, he’s sitting at an ERA of 13.50. And after throwing 42 pitches, Duffey won’t be available for two or three days, so the Twins are simply swapping in a fresh(er) arm here.
The smart money is on either John Curtiss — who is dealing as a reliever at Rochester — or Dietrich Enns, who was the scheduled starter for the Red Wings before their game was snowed out in Syracuse on Sunday. Both are on the 40-man roster.
Magill’s Twins debut went rather well
Expectations are certainly kept in check for a pitcher who has 32 MLB innings but hasn’t thrown in the big leagues since 2016, but Magill looked just fine. He blew up Eugenio Suarez’s bat for an RBI single to left center — the run was charged to Taylor Rogers, who really struggled — and Scott Schebler followed with a single that just snuck under Brian Dozier’s mitt.
Magill worked with a four-seam fastball that registered as a cutter on the big board at Target Field — movement! — and that pitch peaked at 96.2 mph. He relied heavily on that, but also threw a handful of two-seamers (peak 94.4 mph), six sliders and four changeups.
Magill’s stuff can work at higher velocities in shorter bursts, so there is still some stuff-based intrigue here for a guy who is already 28. He came in with a career ERA of 6.47 and a K/BB ratio of 27-33, and came out giving the Twins some much needed length out of the bullpen. For now, the Twins will take it.
“I thought he threw the ball well,” Molitor said. “He gave up the broken bat to the first hitter and a couple fairly weakly hit balls to the right side of the infield. That was about it.”
Escobar is about the only good thing going for this offense right now
He’s hit in six straight and has doubles in three straight, and has taken a few more walks to round out his profile. For the season, he’s hitting a Miguel Sano-like .308/.356/.564, which is why he’s starting at cleanup regularly lately, and also a good thing since he’s filling in for the injured Sano, who is dealing with a hamstring injury.
Brian Dozier has been good for the year, but has hit the skids since the beginning of the Yankees series. Joe Mauer is getting on base at an obscene pace (.454), but is hitting mostly singles as he’s slugging .373. Miguel Sano is hurt
Logan Morrison, for what it’s worth, has also picked it up a bit of late. Over his last nine games, he’s 8-for-31 (.258) with three walks, a homer and a double from Sunday’s game — his first at Target Field as a Twin.
Injury updates on Sano, Buxton
Molitor did not have an update on Buxton (toe) after the game. “I didn’t see anything from Buxton before the game,” Molitor said. “I haven’t seen what he was able to do.”
Molitor’s pregame update on Buxton was that he was going to go out and do some light running in the outfield, though as noted, he wasn’t sure how that went for the speedster. Molitor did say he thought they’d have a better feel for Buxton’s timeline before the team leaves on the road trip on Wednesday, signaling that the center fielder’s return is not yet imminent.
He did say that Sano was available as a pinch-hitter if the team needed a hit late in the game, but that wasn’t the case with the game ending with a six-run gap. “I know it’s still bothering him a little bit to run,” Molitor said. “I think he’s feeling it a little bit rotationally maybe when he’s swinging. I’m optimistic. I know he wants to play, but we’re going to have to be smart about when we get him back out there. Whether tomorrow is an option or not, we’ll take the time that we have and see how he feels tomorrow when he comes in.”
Notes
- Up next for the Twins is the Toronto Blue Jays at home. Projected pitching matchups are Aaron Sanchez vs. Lance Lynn on Monday (7:10 p.m.), Marco Estrada vs. Kyle Gibson on Wednesday (7:10 p.m.) and Marcus Stroman vs. Phil Hughes (12:10 p.m.) on Wednesday.
- The Reds improved to 12-12 all-time against the Twins, per the game notes.
- Escobar extended his hitting streak to six games with a second-inning double — his 11th of the year. Only New York’s Miguel Andujar (12) has more in the AL.
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