Ice cold!
The game started off about as well as it could for the Twins, but it was all downhill from there.
Joe Ryan started the game by striking out the side, including two of the best hitters alive in Yordan Alvarez and Jose Altuve. Matt Wallner then tripled (see, he is a speedy leadoff hitter!) and came in on a Carlos Correa grounder. Some patented Buxton Speed and a Trevor Larnach single later and the Twins were up 2-0 before fans could even get to their seats.
Ryan gave up back-to-back bombs to Christian Walker and Jeremy Peña to start the second inning, bringing the score even. Ryan was fairly solid the rest of the way, though the Astros scratched across two more in the fourth thanks to a questionable balk call that turned a double play ball into a two-run single after the Twins brought in the infield. Louie Varland would surrender one more in the sixth inning, and the way the Twins are swinging right now that was enough for the Astros.
After Willi Castro singled to start the second inning, Astros pitchers went on to retire 20 of the final 22 Twins they faced. The only players who reached base after the second were Wallner on an error and Buxton on a swinging bunt. They hit four balls hard (95 MPH+) all day, good for a disastrous 19% hard hit rate. The Astros have a great pitching staff, but there was a complete lack of competitive at bats for almost the entire game, just like the other four games the Twins have lost this season.
We can hand-wring about the Ryan balk and homers all we want, but the reality is that there’s almost team in baseball that pitch well enough to drag this offense to a win right now. These Twins bats have plenty of talent, so maybe the off-day tomorrow can wake them up in time to win the last two games of this series.
STUDS
- Folks, I’m at a loss here. I suppose Jorge Alcala…? He pitched a good, clean inning.
DUDS
- Every single hitter: 5-32, 0 BBs, 1-22 over the final 8 innings.
- Pablo Lopez: was being interviewed on TV during the back-to-back Astros homers, so it’s probably his fault