Nationals 3, Twins 2: Jorge Polanco's Return Soiled By Blown Lead Late

[Matt Braun]

Sometimes a few dribblers can be the death of you.

Image courtesy of Nick Wosika-USA TODAY Sports

Box Score
Tyler Mahle: 6 1/3 IP, 3 H, 1 ER, 0 BB, 4 K
Home Run: Joey Gallo (5)
Bottom 3 WPA: Griffin Jax (-.467), Jose Miranda (-.370), Jorge Polanco (-.182)
Win Probability Chart (via FanGraphs)

“It is snowing in Minneapolis on April 21st.”

Bundled in whatever they could find around the house, fans and players alike trudged to the ballpark, eschewing both a Wild and Timberwolves playoff games to stir up the familiar lights of Target Field, this time with Jorge Polanco in the lineup for the first time all season. Tyler Mahle took the mound opposite Trevor Williams. Both veterans of a wily nature, the pitchers offered their low 90s fastballs and assorted mix of breaking balls to hitters who looked like they would rather be elsewhere—not that anyone could blame them. 

The game danced its usual refrain for the first two frames, exchanging zeroes as each team worked to get a feel on their opponent. 

Minnesota succeeded first once that movement ended: “when he hits it, it stays hit,” spoke Roy Smalley, unknowingly prophesying the first run of the ballgame. The batter—one Joey Gallo—evidently heard the saying, felt the words in his soul, and he almost immediately belted a screaming line drive that nearly took out an entire section of fans in right field. The ball left his bat at 113 MPH. It was his fifth homer of the season.

The Twins felt like scoring a little more, though, as a Ryan Jeffers double—with some help from a poor play by Nationals right fielder Lane Thomas—begat a medium-deep sacrifice fly off the bat of Max Kepler. After just a few pitches, the Twins had a 2-0 lead.

And it was all Tyler Mahle needed. The righty attacked the tepid Nationals lineup, coaxing fly balls that died in the crisp evening air while accepting strikeouts as they came. His fastball only occasionally tickled 94, but Washington saw it poorly all the same; they earned just three hits while Mahle stood on the mound. Unfortunately, the last of those hits was a solo homer from Joey Meneses on Mahle’s final pitch of the ballgame. The 6 1/3 innings of work were deeply appreciated by Rocco Baldelli—a manager juggling a bullpen low on gas following a draining Boston series.

And thus entered the reliever battle. Caleb Thielbar brought the 7th to a close, allowing Griffin Jax to claim the 8th. The first two outs came easy, but a lethargic grounder found open grass, allowing C.J. Abrams to take second base. With a bit more gusto—a respectable exit velocity—Lane Thomas tied the game on a ground ball beyond two diving infielders. Suddenly, a Keibert Ruiz single gave the Nationals a lead unthinkable if you had watched any of the previous frames.

The Twins fell silently against Hunter Harvey in the 8th, striking out thrice against the flowing hard-thrower; Washington was equally weak against Jorge López.

At this point—with Gallo’s homer coming seemingly four days ago—Minnesota found themselves in the crucial situation: down a run in the bottom of the 9th. Byron Buxton singled and Trevor Larnach walked; life appeared quickly. Polanco lined out, unfortunately unable to turn his process into a hit, and Jose Miranda stepped up as the potential hero. With a wild Kyle Finnegan on the mound, seemingly vulnerable, Miranda swung at his opening offering, grounding a ball directly at Jeimer Candelario; the ensuing double play was as easy as it looked.

With a 2-0 lead on one of the worst teams in MLB, the Twins found a way to extract a loss from their fortunes. 

Notes:

Joey Gallo is slugging .889 on the year.

Tyler Mahle lowered his season ERA to 3.32.

Griffin Jax is the 6th most valuable reliever in MLB by fWAR, holding a 0.4 mark over 10 outings.
Post-Game Interview:

 

Pablo López will take on Chad Kuhl on Saturday; the game starts at 1:10 PM. 

Bullpen Usage Spreadsheet

 

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[USAFChief]

11th time the team has scored 3 or fewer runs. 2 of the games we scored 4, took extra innings. This offense is weak, but We're only short maybe 3 hitters.

 

...

 

Say...Yordon Alvarez, Freddie Freeman, and Aaron Judge. 

[I wish the twins were good]

1 minute ago, USAFChief said:

11th time the team has scored 3 or fewer runs. 

We're only short maybe 3 hitters.

 

...

 

Say...Yordon Alvarez, Freddie Freeman, and Aaron Judge. 

This whole endeavor is pointless while Buxton and Correa are blackholes. So I guess watch em sink like a rock until that changes. Not even May and I'm in "I'll check in again in a week" mode with this team again.

[Brazilian Twins Fan]

All those double plays hurt a lot...

[Nashvilletwin]

Pretty standard Twins loss tonight: some cheap hits (Jax is the tough luck kid this year), a complete mind-bending fielding faux pas, and no runs after two on and no outs in the 9th.  So a combination of bad luck, stupid baseball, inability to move runners over, lack of hitting, and possibly (note I said possibly) questionable managerial decisions (maybe the shift and deciding not to move the runners over). Pretty much par for the course.

Having said that, Mahle had a great outing and Gallo hit a rope HR. Those are encouraging events - I hope they keep it up.  (As an aside, I’ve had the under on the performance of those two and they (thankfully) are proving me wrong).

Get ‘em tomorrow.

[Jocko87]

9 minutes ago, USAFChief said:

11th time the team has scored 3 or fewer runs. 

We're only short maybe 3 hitters.

 

...

 

Say...Yordon Alvarez, Freddie Freeman, and Aaron Judge. 

Aren't we all 😂

[ashbury]

Didn't Larnach make bad throws on consecutive plays?

[cHawk]

Completely ****ing unacceptable performance.

[Boswell]

Down 3-2 in the bottom of the 9th, no outs, runners on first and second?

Yeah, back in the 70’s you’d lay down a sacrifice bunt… seemed to work then!

 

[miller761]

Trying to throw out a fast base runner at the plate and not keeping the lead run on first. This is not the first time he has done this in his career. He should be next to Rocco tomorrow thinking about what a stupid play that was. 

[Aggies7]

You don’t have to be great but you can’t be BORING. 

[Vanimal46]

Gotta find a way to score more runs consistently. It really is that simple. 

[wabene]

Doesn't the average MLB team score something like 4.7 rounds a game? Imagine our record with that output

[tony&rodney]

The next six weeks will be important see if the guys counted on to provide some offense can find success. I'm going to find some patience because right now the team is a little frustrating to watch. 

[Guest]

I know it’s just a game, but I get so invested in this team, and get so frustrated/disappointed when they underperform like this….maybe we need to overhaul the coaching staff? 

[KirbyDome89]

1 hour ago, USAFChief said:

11th time the team has scored 3 or fewer runs. 2 of the games we scored 4, took extra innings. This offense is weak, but We're only short maybe 3 hitters.

 

...

 

Say...Yordon Alvarez, Freddie Freeman, and Aaron Judge. 

They just keep running into great pitching. It's wild....

[TWTwinsFan]

Boring offence and a bad throw lead to an ugly loss,the hitters were trying to one swing score mode,okay....Gallo worked,lets pray for others...

[TWTwinsFan]

45 minutes ago, Twins_Fan_In_Texas said:

I know it’s just a game, but I get so invested in this team, and get so frustrated/disappointed when they underperform like this….maybe we need to overhaul the coaching staff? 

I dont see this coaching staff take this team further...I mean maybe they can win the division but not a playoff game.

[tony&rodney]

Cold weather is tough for baseball but the mistakes are piling up. One of the things remarkable about major league games is how few mistakes are made, but those times when a player makes a mistake (not a physical error) it is usually problematic. I don't know what happened with Larnach's throws tonight but the brain fart by Kepler last night getting thrown out at third base was crazy.

Smalley has the best baseball mind of any of the Twins voices, despite the problem with his voice. He simply does not have that radio voice which in no way detracts from whatever comment he is making but grates on many people hearing him. I always thought he would be an excellent manager or coach but the grind was likely not too appealing for him or maybe he wasn't favored in the same light as some other guys. 

 

[D.C Twins]

I think it is safe to say that getting ride of the shift did not solve Kepler's hitting problem....🙄

[Aerodeliria]

Look at the BAs. When Gallo is your most consistent hitter, then the Twins are in trouble because they will simply walk him as they have been doing. We must have the worst BA in the league at this point, don't we?

[SwainZag]

1 hour ago, KirbyDome89 said:

They just keep running into great pitching. It's wild....

I've been an advocate of this team facing great pitchers this year so far....... but tonight wasn't one.   On the bright side they only struck out 7 times.... downside, hits are still few and far in-between. 

[joefish]

3 hours ago, ashbury said:

Didn't Larnach make bad throws on consecutive plays?

Today he looked like last year. Sloppy and out to lunch

 Like Kepler a few days ago. Brainfarts.

[howeda7]

Chickens coming home to roost for Falvey. Arrogantly keeping Pagan and not adding anyone else to the bullpen. Trading the batting champion off an already weak offense.  And Rocco continues to get out-managed on a regular basis. 

[bighat]

6 hours ago, Aggies7 said:

You don’t have to be great but you can’t be BORING. 

^^^^

Yep. This team isn't going anywhere this season - let's see some stolen bases, some big homers, let's see 'em lose a lot of high scoring games and go 62-100. It'd be much better than watching this dried-paint experiment go 75-87. 

Losing 3-2 because this team can't score against the worst pitcher on a 5-13 basement-dweller AT HOME is just super on-brand for whatever this Twins team has become. After going through this exact same thing for most of 2022. it's really hard to feel positive about anything on the '23 team besides maybe Pablo Lopez.

Things are going to get very bleak by the time the summer's over. A lot of stretches of losing 5 in a row, followed by a win, followed by 3 straight losses, etc. And I'm pretty darn sure there's a 10-game losing streak in the mail and it'll get here by June. 

 

[rwilfong86]

Used the wrong pitcher in the 8th. 

[rwilfong86]

4 hours ago, howeda7 said:

Chickens coming home to roost for Falvey. Arrogantly keeping Pagan and not adding anyone else to the bullpen. Trading the batting champion off an already weak offense.  And Rocco continues to get out-managed on a regular basis. 

Not brining in Lopez seemed like an arrogant move, thinking the Nationals weren't gonna be able to touch Jax. That was as frustrating a loss as I've seen all season.

[Doctor Gast]

This is a terrible start from a terrible series at BOS. The league has been beating up on these guys & we look pathetic. Have to admit that Mahle was good & was good to have Polanco back but the loss spoiled that.

Ober was left back in AAA again must be very frustrating. I'm all in for giving SWR a break, but Ober has the experience. I believe we can be more competitive with Ober. 

[mikelink45]

8 hours ago, Boswell said:

Down 3-2 in the bottom of the 9th, no outs, runners on first and second?

Yeah, back in the 70’s you’d lay down a sacrifice bunt… seemed to work then!

 

Or a hit and run (do they do that any more?) or a stolen base (not the Twins).

[hitterscount]

It's early... but things are not looking great at the moment. Cannot hit, poor bullpen performances, basic fundamental mistakes that are costing games and questionable managing decisions will lead to losing 5 out of the last 6.

Why wasn't Lopez in to pitch the 8th? Rocco being Rocco. He is letting the SP go deeper, which is great,,, but overthinks how to use the BP and why I thought a change was warranted at the end of last year.