Make It Official! Twins 3, Rangers 2: Minnesota Ekes Out Series-Opening Win

[Matt Braun]

You know it's an uneventful game when two relievers were the most impactful players. 

Image courtesy of Matt Blewett-USA TODAY Sports

Box Score
Bailey Ober: 5 IP, 4 H, 2 ER, 3 BB, 5 K
Home Runs: Alex Kirilloff (4)
Top 3 WPA: Jhoan Duran (.161), Griffin Jax (.120), Christian Vázquez (.113)
Win Probability Chart (via FanGraphs)

On a day you could have—and probably should have—chosen to watch the Timberwolves, Minnesota honored Star Wars night by following the original trilogy’s ethos to a tee. No, the evil wasn’t their opponent; it was the spirit of Minnesota sports, cursed, lording, perpetually undercutting, and creeping behind the optimism that so often blesses other franchises. One may call it the force. Certainly, it pushes individuals to choke. Would either team break the curse on Friday?

Bailey Ober didn’t make it easy for his team. An optimist would call his start “workmanlike;” a pessimist, inefficient. His rare poor command portended early trouble when a lead-off walk of Marcus Semien set up Corey Seager to blast a two-run homer to center. He was the second batter of the game. Perhaps it was better to wait for the Wolves.

But, the Rangers didn’t command the same presence they did last year; their World Series hangover hasn’t been yack-in-the-toilet-immediately-after-waking-up bad, but they’ve been laying on the couch nursing a tall bottle of Gatorade for nearly two months now. Their rotation is a mess. Their bullpen—already a scourge, even in the best of times—is less trustworthy than Russia in the Cold War. They entered the series with a 24-27 record following a sweep in the city of Brotherly Love. 

José Ureña revealed this weakness with early mistakes. He navigated a 1st inning mess before faltering in the 2nd, allowing a run when Christian Vázquez smacked his first double of the year into right field. Edouard Julien then concluded the rally with an RBI groundout.

That only tied the game, though. The lead-changing hit didn’t come until Alex Kirilloff caught a lethargic changeup in the zone and turned it into a souvenir. 

So began the typical push-pull common in most baseball games. It's not fair to say that nothing happened; rather, threats appeared and dissipated, occasionally considering altering the glacial task of scoring a run before ultimately falling by the wayside with nothing to show. Steven Okert needed five pitches to get through an inning. Caleb Thielbar, 12. Griffin Jax followed with an equally event-less 8th to allow Jhoan Duran to enter the 9th in a save situation.

And he looked like the Duran of old. Mostly. His first fastball clocked in at 102. His second, the same. Travis Jankowski earned a four-pitch walk, but Semien chopped a grounder to 3rd to render the free pass completely irrelevant. Twins win. Every TV in the area simultaneously switched to the Wolves. 

Notes:

Royce Lewis will fly to Buffalo and join the Saints for a rehab assignment starting Saturday.

Jhoan Duran earned the 40th save of his MLB career. He is four saves away from passing Doug Corbett for 14th place on the All-Time Twins list.

Bailey Ober's three walks allowed tied a single-game career-high.

Alex Kirilloff's 26th career homer ties him with Vic Power, Scott Leius, Mickey Hatcher, and AJ Pierzynski for total home runs hit in a Twins uniform. 

Griffin Jax lowered his season ERA to 2.53.

Post-Game Interviews:

 

 

What’s Next?
The Twins and Rangers will play the second game of their series on Saturday. Chris Paddack faces off against Michael Lorenzen. First pitch is at 1:10 PM. 

Bullpen Usage Spreadsheet

 

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[BH67]

I hereby offer an excellent pairing wine from Napa for our Twins' Cloverdale Tangy. Its name oozes with streakiness, and its tasting notes include flavors of smoked meats -- seriously. Bon appétit!

https://www.moduswines.com/hyde/

 

[wabene]

Duran did not throw the curve. His first 6 or 7 pitches were fastballs. After that is was splitters and fastballs. Velo was good. He had a 100mph splitter. All is well.

[Whitey333]

Not pretty but pretty good anyway.  Just win baby!!  Twins still have too many players scuffling at the plate.  Hopefully it will pick up when Lewis returns.  Duran velo was good.  Sorry can't get used to that.  Duran velocity was good lol.

[stringer bell]

Bullpen was nails! The offense had a lot of chances to increase the lead, but couldn't come up with the big hit. OTOH, Ober also avoided damage after yielding a first inning homer despite a parade of runners in the first couple innings.

The Twins are playing Texas at the right time, with a whole bunch of their starters on the shelf. 

[CRF]

Winna, winna...summer sausage dinna!

[JD-TWINS]

No curves isn’t unusual - often, Duran uses a 2 pitch mix. (sometimes no splinker) He faced a fair amount of LH batters and throwing curves to them, w/o extreme confidence in command, would have been stupid. I don’t think he’s lost confidence in the pitch, generally. He had good velocity and that plays!! He had really nice control with the splinker. No reason to get cute with a broader pitch mix. Very effective - seemed locked in overall.

Seems that he and Vazquez can work together once again to get 3 outs!

[terrydactyls]

Urena allowed a pair of runs on a double by Vasquez and a groundout by Julien?  I think you skipped a few things.  What actually happened?

[Doctor Gast]

After the early 2 runs Ober battled to keep us in the game. Hats off to Vazquez for driving in the 1st run & putting 2 runners in scoring position & to Kiriloff's HR. We needed those guys to hit & they came thru when we needed them. I'm a big Buxton fan & love it when he goes on his hitting spree but we also need him to come thru with a single when we runners in scoring position. We needed the BP to shut down TX & they did a fine job.

[DJL44]

Saturday's game is the free game on MLB.tv (blackouts apply).

[Matt Braun]

1 hour ago, terrydactyls said:

Urena allowed a pair of runs on a double by Vasquez and a groundout by Julien?  I think you skipped a few things.  What actually happened?

Yeah, that phrasing sucked. Just changed it. 

[jmlease1]

A good win, but I wanted to chuck the plate umpire into the Mississippi with the sequence in the bottom 3rd into the top of the 4th, because it's the kind of inconsistency that drives me absolutely batty (and clearly our hitters too). Ump expanded the zone putting our hitters in a hole with pitches that did not look like strikes and hadn't been called as strikes earlier in the game (especially on the inside part of the plate to LH hitters); down 0-2 they were in a real problem against the low changeup as they're trying to cover the whole (and what they saw as very wide) plate. Top 4, Ober is throwing pitches in the same spots...and not getting the same calls. It didn't end up mattering, but it's so aggravating. Morneau doesn't go after umpires that much, but he was on it.

Glad to see Kirilloff pound a homer. He's been scrabbling for a month and needed this. Hopefully he can get back to smashing line drives. 10 hits and 5 walks is usually going to score more than 3 runs, and the approach at the plate was good by the offense.

Excellent work by the bullpen to nail down the win. Okert having a weird season; he's pitched pretty well overall and has a solid ERA+...but has also managed to blow 5 saves already. He's been death against LH, but he needs to limit the damage against RH better or he going to be restricted in what he can do for us. Good work in this game, though.

[cheeseheadgophfan]

Farmer absolutely destroyed that ball in the 8th (i believe).....3rd baseman made an unbelievable catch or we would have added on runs....

[terrydactyls]

3 hours ago, Matt Braun said:

Yeah, that phrasing sucked. Just changed it. 

I had to go to the box score to figure out what happened.  Vasquez drove in a run with his double and then Julien drove him in with a ground out.  The write up still sounds like Vasquez doubled and Julien grounded out but somehow two runs scored,