Tigers 3, Twins 2: Bloop-Filled 2nd Inning and Rookie Hurler Top Twins

[Hans Birkeland]

The Twins bats were stymied by another unproven callup, but Reese Olson looked like a solid prospect in holding the Twins to one run while striking out nine batters. Pablo López was done in by one big inning once again, while Byron Buxton and Jose De Leon both left with injuries.

Image courtesy of David Reginek-USA TODAY Sports

Box Score
SP: Pablo López: 6 IP, 7 H, 3 ER, 1 BB, 10 K (100 pitches, 73 for strikes, 73%)
Home Runs: Carlos Correa (11), Joey Gallo (12)
Bottom 3 WPA: Edouard Julien (-.200) Royce Lewis (-.176), López (-.120)

Win Probability Chart (Via Fangraphs):

Tigers find out that Ed Julien can’t play second
With the game scoreless in the bottom of the second, the Tigers got to work exposing Ed Julien for his defensive shortcomings. Andy Ibanez grounded to Correa with Nick Maton on first, and Correa made the feed to Julien, who double-clutched before his throw to first, allowing Ibanez to reach. He came around to score on a grounder up the middle from Eric Haase (expected batting-average of .210) that Julien took an odd, stumbling route to (OK, he dove for it). The All-Star break can’t come soon enough for a number of reasons for this club, but potentially getting Jorge Polanco back around then may be the biggest.

Pablo López pays for defensive miscues, own hubris
López’s stuff looked decent on Saturday, but he threw too many hittable pitches while ahead in the count and got dinked and dunked on by an array of Tigers hitters fighting to stay in not only the at-bat, but the majors. His stuff got crisper as the game progressed, and started putting Tigers hitters away when ahead, finishing with 10 strikeouts over six innings.

Reese Olson shows electric stuff
Reese Olson started for the Tigers and hasn’t had a great start to his career, nor was he pitching well in the minors to begin the year. But he struck out 12.6 batters per nine innings last year at Triple-A and showed some of that potential against the Twins’ sell-out-for-power lineup, generating plenty of whiffs on his plus-slider while keeping hitters honest with a generally well-located 96 MPH fastball. He appeared to tire a bit in the sixth, allowing a long home run to Carlos Correa, and a single to Alex Kirilloff, which ended his night. The return for Daniel Norris, who himself was the main return for David Price, looks like he has some promise and may get some extended run for the Tigers this year given their multitude of pitching injuries.

Byron Buxton doesn’t have a great night
After starting 0-for-2 with a strikeout against Olson, Buxton delivered a rocket grounder (110 mph) off of reliever Jose Cisnero , right to shortstop Javier Baez, who turned an easy double play. Buxton wasn’t running hard on the play, and looked to be in immense pain as he ambled down the first base line. He ended up leaving the game at that point with back spasms.

What’s Next
Bailey Ober (4-4, 2.83 ERA) goes up against Michael Lorenzen (2-5, 4.00 ERA) for the series win. Ober has been the Twins most consistent pitcher in recent weeks and needs to be at his best (apparently) in order to win a road series against a team 10 games under .500.

Postgame Interviews

The game aired nationally on Fox, so there may not be any postgame interviews, but we'll look. 

Bullpen Usage Chart

	TUE	WED	THU	FRI	SAT	TOT
Durán	0	32	0	19	0	51
Stewart	0	15	0	28	0	43
Headrick	41	0	0	0	0	41
Morán	0	17	0	16	0	33
Pagán	0	0	0	0	30	30
Jax	0	8	0	12	0	20
Balazovic	0	0	0	0	6	6
De León	0	0	0	0	0	0

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[Peter]

Crap s—t win for Detroit-had no business winning tonight. No matter-twins blowout Detroit tomorrow/win series.

[hitterscount]

Yet again…  unable to keep a winning streak going… against a rookie pitcher, pitching for a really bad team. They may win the division, but only because they are in the AL central. These are games quality teams win… we are not that.

[Peter]

8 minutes ago, hitterscount said:

Yet again…  unable to keep a winning streak going… against a rookie pitcher, pitching for a really bad team. They may win the division, but only because they are in the AL central. These are games quality teams win… we are not that.

Twins have best team in division!!! Detroit got lucky tonight/won’t win tomorrow!!! Cleveland/white sox blow ass. Can’t see twins losing division-no way!!! 

[SwainZag]

10 minutes ago, hitterscount said:

Yet again…  unable to keep a winning streak going… against a rookie pitcher, pitching for a really bad team. They may win the division, but only because they are in the AL central. These are games quality teams win… we are not that.

Meh..... you aren't going to beat a subpar every time out.  Olson looks like he could be a solid major leaguer.  Very tough all around day for Mr. Julien.

[stringer bell]

Tough loss. Sad to see what happened to De León. Also Buxton. Can we put Julien on the IL for an ailing glove?

[William K Johnson]

Put Farmer at second until Polanco gets back.   This fascination with prospects who are not ready for the big show (see Jose Miranda) has got to stop.

[MABB1959]

Starting to look like Buxton should learn to bunt.  Assuming he hurt whatever he hurt yesterday on the swing.  Didn’t seem like he should have over exerted while trotting to first. 
 

Ongoing Back injuries can be career ending for gymnasts. Doctors will encourage retirement if they don’t want to have pain for the rest of their lives. 

[DJL44]

Julien looks completely lost at second base and Correa looks frustrated trying to teach the rookie what to do in real time. He's giving back on defense everything he provides on offense. I agree, play Farmer at 2B. When they send Julien back to the minors give him a first baseman's glove. It's going to take years of additional reps at second base to make him playable and even then he won't be good.

[DJL44]

Lots of times last night when the Twins picked the wrong pitch to swing at - letting hittable pitches go in favor of swinging at unhittable pitches. I think their game plan at the plate was not prepared for how the Tigers were pitching. Tigers management has stolen several games against the Twins this year and they have their team playing well above expectations.

[weitz41]

Another tough loss. Really terrible to see De Leon get injured. Just when he was having a little success in MLB. We've seen guys come off the mound and head for the dugout that way before and its usually pretty bad news. 

[Blyleven2011]

CLEVELAND knocking on the door  sitting 1 game out as twins are currently leading the division,,,

This twins team  won't separate itself from the rest of the division unless it has some winning streaks and by Allstar game could be looking up to a new divisional leader ...

Getting a spark going with 3 wins and then snuffed out by a team we should be beating ...

[big dog]

1. We have a hitting coach, an assistant hitting coach, and hardly anyone hitting. Anyone else dissatisfied with that?

2. How many games will Byron be held out before they put him on the IL? Three or more, where’s the betting on that?

This team is a drunk guy shuffling down the street, sometimes looking like he’s got it together enough to get home and other times making me sure he’s going to fall into a trench and drown. It’s too hard to watch, and he is ignoring my offers to help so I’m just gonna dial 911 and go home. 

[tony&rodney]

The Twins need to score runs to win. The pitching and defense may let the team dow from time to time but expecting to hold teams scoreless or close is a plan that won't work. I see the defensive blunders, the fails by the pitchers, and mistakes. The Twins will not rise above a .500 record if they just continue to leave runners on base, score few runs in so many games, and strike out at a record pace. So yes, the bullpen has blown a few games, Julien and others are less than stellar in the field, and Pablo Lopez is not throwing shutouts. However, offense is the main culprit. It was the problem last night and has been all season to date.

[Whitey333]

Yes this team has been playing boring undisciplined baseball for two and a half seasons.  The veteran hitters for the most part have been bad.  Oh sure Buxton hits two long Homer's against Boston and people say he's back.  Of course he goes on another hitless streak with several more strikeouts.  And obviously the manager blames it on his I Jared back he's had trouble with for most of the season.  How convenient isn't.  Then fir whatever reason they refuse to put him on IL.  I suppose he may get traumatized.  They many times rest him fir several days without an IL designation.  This just limits Roccos Ben h even more.  If he's to hurt to even be the DH the. IL him.  He is hurting, not helping the team.   Very strange team indeed.

[thelanges5]

Twins one true outcome:

quality start + double digit k’s = loss

offense (lack thereof) is the culprit once again

 

[terrydactyls]

55 minutes ago, Whitey333 said:

Yes this team has been playing boring undisciplined baseball for two and a half seasons.  The veteran hitters for the most part have been bad.  Oh sure Buxton hits two long Homer's against Boston and people say he's back.  Of course he goes on another hitless streak with several more strikeouts.  And obviously the manager blames it on his I Jared back he's had trouble with for most of the season.  How convenient isn't.  Then fir whatever reason they refuse to put him on IL.  I suppose he may get traumatized.  They many times rest him fir several days without an IL designation.  This just limits Roccos Ben h even more.  If he's to hurt to even be the DH the. IL him.  He is hurting, not helping the team.   Very strange team indeed.

Please proof read your comments before submitting.  This short paragraph took far too long to translate into English.

[D.C Twins]

2 hours ago, DJL44 said:

Julien looks completely lost at second base and Correa looks frustrated trying to teach the rookie what to do in real time. He's giving back on defense everything he provides on offense. I agree, play Farmer at 2B. When they send Julien back to the minors give him a first baseman's glove. It's going to take years of additional reps at second base to make him playable and even then he won't be good.

If only there was a platinum glove CF that could be moved off DH so that Julian could play his natural position of DH.... I know.... pure fantasy 

[jorgenswest]

Just now, D.C Twins said:

If only there was a platinum glove CF that could be moved off DH so that Julian could play his natural position of DH.... I know.... pure fantasy 

Do you think the Twins medical staff incorrect in assessing that Buxton should not be playing in the field?

[D.C Twins]

3 minutes ago, jorgenswest said:

Do you think the Twins medical staff incorrect in assessing that Buxton should not be playing in the field?

I doubt the medical staff has said that he absolutely cannot play in the field... the team just thinks that he will theoretically get hurt less not playing in the field. 

If the medical staff thought that he was not physically able to play in the field, I doubt that they would clear him to be running full speed around the bases and sliding etc. 

If he truly is medically unfit to play in the field, I would prefer that he gets whatever rest, rehabilitation, surgery etc that is needed to do so.

If we honestly signed him to a loooooong term contract knowing that he would likely not be able to play in the field again, it was a huuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuge mistake (especially given our predilection for drafting many defensively limited hitters)

[Sparky55]

Unbelievable he can’t even stay healthy being a full time DH. Rest him for 3 weeks, drop Gallo, call up walner and Williams.

[stringer bell]

27 minutes ago, D.C Twins said:

I doubt the medical staff has said that he absolutely cannot play in the field... the team just thinks that he will theoretically get hurt less not playing in the field. 

If the medical staff thought that he was not physically able to play in the field, I doubt that they would clear him to be running full speed around the bases and sliding etc. 

If he truly is medically unfit to play in the field, I would prefer that he gets whatever rest, rehabilitation, surgery etc that is needed to do so.

If we honestly signed him to a loooooong term contract knowing that he would likely not be able to play in the field again, it was a huuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuge mistake (especially given our predilection for drafting many defensively limited hitters)

 

16 minutes ago, Sparky55 said:

Unbelievable he can’t even stay healthy being a full time DH. Rest him for 3 weeks, drop Gallo, call up walner and Williams.

If Rocco is telling the truth, Buxton cannot play in the field. He avoided the question for 40% of the schedule. We haven’t been told the medical details, but his ability to swing a bat and run the bases indicate that he has only a small distance that he can run before being impaired (my analysis). 

[John Belinski]

It was a close game that the Twins could have won when they had bases loaded or not give Tigers the walk in the bad inning. The Twins have lost too many games by walking batters and most of the walks were to batters with low batting averages.  The Twins batters were swinging at too many first pitches so rookie Tigers pitcher had to throw very few pitches. I think it was 8 pitches in one inning and 10 in another inning..  Will take a win today since it looks like a .500 record will win division and maybe good pitching will win in playoffs. Put Buxton on IR and call up Wallner as DH.

[joefish]

5 hours ago, William K Johnson said:

Put Farmer at second until Polanco gets back.   This fascination with prospects who are not ready for the big show (see Jose Miranda) has got to stop.

Can we blame Toby yet?

[jkcarew]

1 hour ago, stringer bell said:

 

If Rocco is telling the truth, Buxton cannot play in the field. He avoided the question for 40% of the schedule. We haven’t been told the medical details, but his ability to swing a bat and run the bases indicate that he has only a small distance that he can run before being impaired (my analysis). 

Rocco running interference. Nothing more.

Honestly, getting to be more of a side-show than he’s worth. IL him or play him in the field. At this point, I’d welcome the IL stint.

2024 needs to be the season to turn things over to the next wave for leadership. Correa will remain valuable. Kepler will be gone and Buxton/Polanco should be considered nothing more than potential depth (or traded).

[DJL44]

2 hours ago, D.C Twins said:

If only there was a platinum glove CF that could be moved off DH so that Julian could play his natural position of DH.... I know.... pure fantasy 

Are you talking about the same guy who couldn't run to first base without injuring himself last evening?

[jorgenswest]

I find the endless debate about Buxton the same as the endless debate about Mauer. Tiresome and unending.

In both cases I trust that the Twins management is going by the advice and recommendations of their medical professionals. I am OK with not knowing the details and appreciate any privacy about health issues they protect. In both cases aI also trusted that the entire staff would prefer Buxton to be in CF and Mauer at catcher. I also don’t believe these decisions were the responsibility of the on field staff.

I likely am in the minority but in order to avoid this (to me) tiresome and endless debate I will need to do the same as I did in Mauer’s time and put those who can’t let this go on the ignore list. I would suggest they do the same for me.