Game Score: Red Sox 12, Twins 2

[Matthew Taylor]

In what has become an all-too-familiar trend, the Minnesota Twins followed up an exciting victory with an absolute dud.

Box Score
Gant: 4 IP, 3 H, 4 ER, 3 BB, 3 K
Home Runs: Astudillo (7)
Bottom 3 WPA: Gant -.193, Garcia -.093, Arraez -.090
Win Probability Chart (via Fangraphs)

Pitching has been the downfall for the Minnesota Twins in 2021, and pitching was their downfall again on Thursday night. The pitching didn’t waste anytime letting the Twins down at Fenway park on Thursday as John Gant was far from sharp.

The scoring got started early for the Red Sox, when Bobby Dalbec cashed in on back-to-back walks from John Gant with a three-run blast to give Boston an early 3-0 lead. The Red Sox then cashed in another run off of Gant in the 3rd inning with an RBI single off the right handed bat of Alex Verdugo.

In total, Gant only gave the Twins four innings while allowing four earned runs, struggling with command all night to the tune of three walks. His lack of distance turned the game over to the bullpen early, which has been a bad thing all night, and was again a bad thing.

After Kyle Barraclough allowed a run in the 5th inning, things completely unraveled for the Twins’ bullpen. In the 6th inning, Edgar Garcia allowed three hits, two walks, hit a batter and threw one wild pitch. He was charged with six runs, highlighted by a home run by Rafael Devers to give the Red Sox their 10th run.

The Red Sox tacked on two more runs in the 7th inning off of Edgar Garcia when Bobby Dalbec hit his second home run, this time of the two-run variety.

While the Red Sox offense was on fire all night, the Twins’ bats were largely silent, as they were only able to muster three hits on the night. The Twins cashed in their only runs of the night in the 5th inning when Willians Astudillo hit his seventh home run of the season over the Green Monster.

Immaculate Inning

In what was an otherwise run-of-the-mill blowout game, there was a noteworthy moment in the 3rd inning when Chris Sale threw the first immaculate inning at Fenway Park since Pedro Martinez in 2002.

Turtle Time
With a blowout game came another chance to watch Willians Astudillo on the mound in mop up duty. He was tasked with pitching for the Twins in the 8th inning. Astudillo didn’t allow a hit or a run in his inning of work.

Postgame Interview

What’s Next?

The Minnesota Twins will return home to kick off a three-game weekend series against the Milwaukee Brewers by sending Andrew Albers to the mound to face off against Brewers’ left-hander, Eric Lauer.

Bullpen Usage Chart

View full article

[VivaBomboRivera!]

Well that was no damned fun.  Good day to argue the merits of a mercy rule.

It has to rub Astudillo the wrong way to be asked to throw an inning when he's the only guy who put up any runs tonight.  Couldn't they find anyone more deserving of the honor?

[DocBauer]

Just a bad game and embarrassing loss.

Gant MIGHT have a future in the 2022 pen but throwing him out there is a diservice to him and ANY potential he has. HOPEFULLY we will see Ryan and Dobnak SOON to actually build towards 2022.

And I think the Twins are doing right at this time in a lost season to audition some BP arms. And as much as it sucks, a game or two doesn't really show potential for a couple guys they are looking at. But you also have to be willing to pull the plug and let some of the AAA arms to bet their shot! 

And it's time! 

Colome what?

Lover or hater, tell me the Turtle hitting a HR wasn't fun. Tell me, even in an embarrassing  loss, tell me you didn't laugh and enjoy Astudillo tossing up crap and having a clean IP.  Dark humor isn't a bad thing. LOL

[Vanimal46]

On a positive note, it looks like this weekend might be rained out against Milwaukee. It’s clear we’re just filling innings with players who have no future in this organization. 

[Aggies7]

The starting pitching matchups on this entire road trip....twins had almost no shot in 4 of the 6 games before they even started. I know that’s not really how baseball “works”...but the point remains. 

[Rosterman]

I would rather see the potential of Gant as a multi-inning relief arm than a starter. Can he do that? I would rather get 2-3 innings out of him that way for any of the starters who can go 5. 

 

Time to shuffle thru some new arms (Vasquez, Hamilton finally) before you bring in Hamilton and Moran?

 

Astudillo was the best pitcher and offensive hero! He ran all four bases. They should give this guy a multi-million dollar 10-year contract!

 

Oh, and loved the pitching chart! Ha!

[Aerodeliria]

4 hours ago, DocBauer said:

Just a bad game and embarrassing loss.

Gant MIGHT have a future in the 2022 pen but throwing him out there is a diservice to him and ANY potential he has. HOPEFULLY we will see Ryan and Dobnak SOON to actually build towards 2022.

And I think the Twins are doing right at this time in a lost season to audition some BP arms. And as much as it sucks, a game or two doesn't really show potential for a couple guys they are looking at. But you also have to be willing to pull the plug and let some of the AAA arms to bet their shot! 

And it's time! 

Colome what?

Lover or hater, tell me the Turtle hitting a HR wasn't fun. Tell me, even in an embarrassing  loss, tell me you didn't laugh and enjoy Astudillo tossing up crap and having a clean IP.  Dark humor isn't a bad thing. LOL

I think that was the knuckler he threw like a lollipop. That's great!

[Aerodeliria]

We shouldn't DFA Garcia. I think he'll pitch for the all-star game next year. The home run derby is need of some good quality arms.

[h2oface]

6 hours ago, DocBauer said:

Lover or hater, tell me the Turtle hitting a HR wasn't fun. Tell me, even in an embarrassing  loss, tell me you didn't laugh and enjoy Astudillo tossing up crap and having a clean IP.  Dark humor isn't a bad thing. LOL

It is always fun when one gets to watch the Team Mascot hit a home run AND pitch an inning.

[bighat]

7 hours ago, Vanimal46 said:

It’s clear we’re just filling innings with players who have no future in this organization. 

I think this is the most frustrating part of this Lost Season. Not only are the Twins losing, but they're not even getting any meaningful development. All the exciting prospects we should have seen full-time right now are injured (Duran, Lewis, Kirilloff) or the Twins just aren't ready to bring them up (J.Blaze, A. Martin, Joe Ryan).

In what's become pretty much the worst case scenario, the franchise now enters 2022 coming off a last-place finish and zero additional knowledge about their top minor league pieces. Murphy's Law, man.

 

[Whitey333]

Here's hoping that on September 1st when the rosters can expand to 28 that we finally see some of these great pitching prospects the FO is pushing.  They should have been here a while ago.  The current " pitching staff"  is in shambles.  It's an embarrassment most of which was created by the FO.

[Dave The Dastardly]

La Tortuga - Twins MVP

[mikelink45]

The letter G did not work, the sesame street FO can now go and get some washed up letter H pitchers -  Gant (6.75era), Garcia (10.45 era), Garza Jr (5.21 FIP) are done as far  as I am concerned and reflect on this FO and their grab of unwanted vets.  Time for Ryan, if he comes up and does what he looks like he is capable of doing the FO will look much better.  

 

[roger]

9 hours ago, Vanimal46 said:

On a positive note, it looks like this weekend might be rained out against Milwaukee. It’s clear we’re just filling innings with players who have no future in this organization. 

Sorry, that isn't likely as the ballpark in Milwaukee has a retractable roof.

[Vanimal46]

9 minutes ago, roger said:

Sorry, that isn't likely as the ballpark in Milwaukee has a retractable roof.

It’s a home game. 

[theBOMisthebomb]

Keep the Tortuga graphic on the Bullpen Usage Chart for the foreseeable future. He is the best reliever in the Twins bullpen! 

[prouster]

Woof

[Brock Beauchamp]

John Gant shouldn't have started once for the Twins but I'll give them one shot at making a mistake.

But by god, JOHN GANT SHOULDN'T HAVE STARTED A SECOND GAME.

My patience is all but done with this front office. We see increasingly feeble offerings from the pitching staff while nothing is done about it except throw more bad options at the wall and hope that maybe, just maybe, one of them will not pitch well but maybe pitch to an ERA under 5.00.

What a colossal waste of every fan's time this season has been.

[RpR]

Gant gave up four runs, the BP gave up 8; do not blame Gant and the other hot-shot bats were cold including Arraez with bases loaded.

[RpR]

6 hours ago, Whitey333 said:

Here's hoping that on September 1st when the rosters can expand to 28 that we finally see some of these great pitching prospects the FO is pushing.  They should have been here a while ago.  The current " pitching staff"  is in shambles.  It's an embarrassment most of which was created by the FO.

Watching rookies get their butts handed to them would have been worse, for the team and their psychology. 

At that, the Orioles lose 18 in a row then blow out the Angels two games in a row; how come the Twins are always the one who get blown out? 

I think the line-up Baldelli put against the Sox speaks for itself.

[joefish]

We should keep watching this season because.....?

I'd rather watch our future rotation pitch than the castoffs we are getting these days. All due respect to the castoffs.

[Johnny Ringo]

Is anyone in the Twins organization embarrassed to be viewed by the league as a clown show? The TV broadcast team chuckled their way through Astudilo's inning. Funny? I think it's a disgrace. 

The Red Sox are in a play-off chase.  I am not a fan of theirs but I admire their franchise success. It is incumbent upon the Twins under every baseball code to fight to the final pitch. Instead we go for laughs apparently. Right now, I regret all the equity, both monetarily and emotionally, that I have invested in this club.

The Twins owe the game, and equally importantly their fans, much better than this.  

I did not sign up for the Washington Generals. Pass the confetti bucket.     

[RpR]

5 hours ago, joefish said:

We should keep watching this season because.....?

I'd rather watch our future rotation pitch than the castoffs we are getting these days. All due respect to the castoffs.

No guarantee any of those pitchers are in the future.