Chicago – Derek Shelton said Sunday was a game to flush away for the Minnesota Twins. The Chicago Cubs crushed them in a 10-1 loss, scoring all their runs off Twins starter Zebby Matthews in the first four innings. Fortunately for the Twins, the bullpen alleviated the bleeding and stopped the Cubs’ offensive onslaught from there, thanks in part to three shutout innings of relief from Travis Adams.
“Honestly, at that point in the ball game, it was nine-, 10-nothing. It was just get outs, just tag outs,” Travis Adams said after Sunday’s game. “Kind of fell behind hitters and stuff, but basically just throw the ball over the plate. Can’t make the game any worse than what it is.”
“The fact that he gave us length, I think that saved us,” Twins manager Derek Shelton said. “It saved us from using a position player just with where we’re at going into the Cleveland series. The fact that he was able to go out and give us that third inning and extend to 45 pitches was big for us.”
Adams allowed only two Cubs batters to reach on a hit and walk, while striking out two through his three innings of work Sunday. He also stunned some radar guns by throwing three pitches over 96 MPH for the first time all season, while topping out at 97.2 MPH.
Before Sunday afternoon, Adams had never thrown a pitch over 95.9 MPH all season. Adams had had nine days since his last outing, which came before the last All-Star Break. It gave Adams plenty of rest time to get the juices flowing at a higher heat than he’s played in all year.
Adams’ outing on Sunday was the highlight in what’s been a good run for him dating back to June 23 against the Dodgers. Even though he’s only pitched six times in that stretch, he owns a 1.86 ERA, 1.14 WHIP, and .156 opponents average. He has allowed six walks and struck out 10 batters over 9 ⅔ innings.
Adams’ command is still a bit of a work in progress. However, his velo has shown its best signs of life on Sunday, and hitters are having a hard time squaring it up. He’s feeling like he’s in his best run on the season.
“Obviously it sucks we lost, but just last couple of outings have been good,” said Adams. “Basically, just continuing to build off of that and just avoid the big blow-up outing and take small steps and hopefully everything goes in the right direction.”
“He’s got some really good pitches, a really good pitch mix,” said Twins catcher Ryan Jeffers. “He’s able to give you length. So all of that, and for him to come in and kind of settle the game down was huge. You don’t want to say it gives us a chance to get back into it in a 10-nothing ball game. You never say never, but you just kind of get some stability in there. That’s always good.”
Adams’ three innings of work against the Cubs were his longest outing of the year. It’s also his longest since his first MLB start, which came against the Detroit Tigers on August 4 last year. The Twins still like to keep him stretched out for long relief, even though he’s no longer on the pitch four innings, every four days plans, as he was in the minors last year.
Even with the trade deadline only two weeks away, the Twins still need to decide what their bullpen looks like before adding. They have only carved out specific roles for Yoendrys Gómez, Andrew Morris, and Taylor Rogers at this point.
Still, Travis Adams proved with his three shutout innings that Minnesota can rely on him in a long relief role, after throwing 45 pitches in his outing on Sunday. Suppose the Twins are still looking for one of their many developed arms going between Triple-A and the majors to serve in that long relief role of facing an opponent’s entire lineup one time through the order. Then Adams made his case to be considered for that role down the stretch Sunday afternoon at the friendly confines.
“I’m usually good with that 35-pitch range. So going into those first two innings, I think it was like 22 pitches,” said Adams. “Obviously still had a good number of pitches left in me. With [Seyia] Suzuki, had an eight-pitch AB, which doesn’t help, but definitely was fine. I was a little tired, but I was still good.”
