Make it Official! Twins 11, Padres 4: Twins Get Back Up Off the Mat

[Steven Trefz]

The Twins came into Wednesday afternoon's series finale in San Diego on the heels of a three-game losing streak and having fallen into a tie with Kansas City for the Wild Card position. Thanks to Trevor Larnach, Edouard Julien, Matt Wallner, and just enough pitching, the Twins got back to their winning ways.

Image courtesy of © Orlando Ramirez-USA TODAY Sports

Box Score
SP: Simeon Woods Richardson - 5 IP, 3 H, 1 ER, 2 BB, 7 K (101 pitches, 69 strikes (68% Strikes)
Home Runs: Matt Wallner (8)
Top 3 WPA: Woods Richardson .162, Austin Martin .149, Willi Castro .122

Win Probability Chart (via FanGraphs)

Who Would Deliver the Knuckle Sandwich?
The Twins came into Wednesday afternoon's matchup with the Padres in search of salvaging a game in the series, and a winning road trip overall. They were facing a unique challenge in their quest to snap a three-game losing streak: Matt Waldron and his occasional knuckle-ball. Simeon Woods Richardson took the hill for the Twins in hopes of sending his squad home in style. While Waldron came into the game struggling (giving up 12 earned runs over his last 10 innings), Woods Richardson came into the afternoon rolling along (giving up four earned runs over his last 12 innings). Who would deliver the punches in this final battle of two playoff hopefuls?

Twins Punch First...and Often!
After scratching across the game's first run in the third, the fourth inning started innocently enough for the Twins with a Jose Miranda ground out. It looked like the pitch-mix and timing of Waldron would keep the Twins off-balance throughout their at-bats. Turns out that the remedy for this situation was some aggressive early swings. Edouard Julien took the first pitch he saw to right, Christian Vazquez blooped a single on the first pitch to right, and although Austin Martin apparently didn't get the memo of "swing away" and took a first pitch strike in his at-bat, he redeemed himself immediately on pitch number two.

Martin's double plated Julien and a hustling catcher to stake Woods Richardson to an early 3-0 lead. Castro then said, "First pitch, right?" and blasted a double off of the right field wall to plate Martin and make it 4-0. Larnach, second pitch, single. Lewis, first pitch, single plats Castro. Wallner, fourth pitch, and boy was he glad he waited for that cutter that didn't cut! A three-run blast to right and Wallner's eighth of the year provides what Twins fans hoped was an early 8-0 knock-out!

Would the Padres Get Off the Mat?
Major League Baseball rules stipulate that games continue even after one of the fanbases declares early victory, and as the Twins have experienced the past few days, the Padres can rally in a hurry. Woods Richardson looked to be cruising through the bottom of the fourth, but a Merrill blooper and a creative fielding "non-error-error" by Julien at second led to an extra 10 pitches and runners once again clogging the bases. A strike out of Higashioka on a full count ended the threat, but the inning meant that the punch-drunk Twins bullpen was going to be needed sooner rather than later to seal this victory.

The Twins, desperate to get back in the win column in spite of their recent bullpen woes, kept on punching after the bell had rung. Julien, Martin, Castro, and Larnach stayed hot (first career four hit game!), with more runs accumulated in the top of the fifth for the Twins to push the lead to 10-0. Old friend Donovan Solano pinch-hit in the bottom of the fifth, and he delivered the only bruise on an otherwise spotless five inning bout for Woods Richardson by hitting a solo homer.

Cole Sands got the first call up in relief, and he pitched a scoreless sixth inning. Caleb Thielbar conquered Arraez in an entertaining at-bat, and also held the Padres scoreless. Ronny Henriquez came in for the eighth, and he tried to throw the fight. A Jake Cronenworth triple led to a Bryce Johnson run batted in, and Merrill continued to mash the bullpen to the tune of 403 feet to bring the Padres within a fighters chance at 10-4.

Steven Okert bore the brunt of the accusations Tuesday night, and he got a chance to leave town a victor. Just to be safe, Julien (four hit night of his own) and Manuel Margot combined for a double and single to give just a little more cushion at 11-4. Okert turned out the lights one, two, three and sent the Twins back home with their hands raised.

What’s Next? 
After an off-day Thursday, the Twins begin a nine-game home stand against the slumping St. Louis Cardinals Friday night. With the Braves and Blue Jays visiting next, its time to regain some momentum in the standings. The Twins send out rookie RHP David Festa (2-2, 4.96 ERA) in hopes that he will continue to improve upon his solid start to the season, while the Cardinals will send RHP Andre Pallante (5-6, 4.07 ERA) to the mound in hopes that he can repeat his seven-inning victorious performance against the Dodgers last week. First pitch is scheduled for 7:10pm CT.

Postgame Interview 

 

Bullpen Usage Sheet

	SAT	SUN	MON	TUE	WED	TOT
Henríquez	27	0	0	10	17	54
Richards	0	13	27	0	0	40
Okert	0	0	0	19	15	34
Alcalá	9	19	0	0	0	28
Thielbar	0	0	9	0	17	26
Sands	9	0	0	0	15	24
Jax	0	9	0	10	0	19
Durán	0	6	0	0	0	6

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[DJL44]

Big games for Larnach and Julien

[TheLeviathan]

We'd have won this game if Rocco wasn't such an idiot about pitcher usage.  Think about how much better our record would be if the previous 126 games were done exactly how some toxic game thread knob would've recommended:  We pitch Ober-Alcala-Jax-Duran every game.  I mean...duh.  You worry about winning today.  Tomorrow is Tomorrow.  We all know that good management is done by completely disregarding all future outcomes and recklessly throwing everything at random games in August.

Ruining their careers?  Worry about today.  Arm fatigue?  Throw with your other arm snowflake, we're winning today dammit!  What if they're having an off day?  Simple: have them all warmed up at all times throughout the game so that if anything bad goes wrong you instantly replace them.  Like, Ober throws a ball?  Go get one of the other three.  Jax has his arm fall off due to overuse?  Cool, Duran has been throwing since the night before so he'd be warm and ready to go.   

It's so simple and yet Rocco can't figure it out. 

Moron.

[Hosken Bombo Disco]

Wow the Twins brought out the baseball bats today! 

[USAFChief]

SWR struggled, but battled through 5 with only 1 run. Nice Job, Mr Woods Richardson. 

Also good to see Julien hit some line drives and get rewarded. Last year's Julien would be a welcome addition. 

I've been to Petco. Nice place, but not sorry to get the **** out of town. 

[S Bart]

I was at the game today, and it was fun to watch. If Correa doesn't return soon, maybe we need to bring this current booth broadcaster from today's game and former Twins infielder back into action :) After all, he is the same age as Santana. He does add a jovial nature to the broadcast booth. 

[Blyleven2011]

What an inning in the top half of 4th inning ...

Singles , doubles and a game changing 3 run homerun ...

Just the way I remember baseball is to be played  ...

15 hits and double digit runs , the batters took the worrying out of the game early , nice game  ...

[BH67]

Welcome back, Eddy. Yet another solid start, Simeon. Thielbar on the mound and Vazquez at the plate are showing improvement. So a 4-3 homestand with missed opportunities followed by a 4-3 road trip with self-inflicted missed opportunities is encouraging.

Tomorrow, the Guardians face Gerrit Cole in the Bronx. Beginning Monday, the Guardians and Royals meet seven times in ten days, and the Royals’ next 20 games are against the Guardians, Twins, Phillies, Astros and Yankees.

Time for the surge, Twins. Well done today.
 

[JD-TWINS]

Needed a win!

4-3 on road is respectable……could’ve won 2 or 6……will take the 4.

SWR keeps them competitive - nice confidence while getting through tough situations.

Chance for a very successful home stand ……..hope they can take advantage.

[Parfigliano]

Good win.  The were speculating postgame that Buxton could be back Friday for St Louis series.

[SwainZag]

Great win.  Put the other two games behind you, take the off day and go back home.  2.5 back of Cleveland for the division, 3 behind NYY for the best record in the American League.  35 games left.

[mikelink45]

4 hours ago, SwainZag said:

Great win.  Put the other two games behind you, take the off day and go back home.  2.5 back of Cleveland for the division, 3 behind NYY for the best record in the American League.  35 games left.

Don't forget the rearview mirror.  KC is tied with us.  And with tie breakers is ahead of us in the wild card standings. We cannot afford to keep rolling over with the good teams - we need to at least break even. 

[Peter]

All in all a successful road trip-could’ve gone 1-6/6-1 but 4-3 in respectable!!! Huge much needed important win!!! Go twins!!!

[Eephus]

7 hours ago, Blyleven2011 said:

What an inning in the top half of 4th inning ...

Singles , doubles and a game changing 3 run homerun ...

Just the way I remember baseball is to be played  ...

15 hits and double digit runs , the batters took the worrying out of the game early , nice game  ...

Any chance the Twins have a ringer Knuckleballer BP pitcher?

[William K Johnson]

Boy we were close to going 6-1 on this trip without Buxton and Correa.   I may be alone in this opinion, but I really like Trevor Plouffe in the booth.

[Doctor Gast]

With little struggle, it looked like Sims was going to cruise through 5 innings with a 2 hit shutout. 4th inning, 2 outs, 0-2 count getting through the middle the order. Then he hit a wall & fought the rest of the way. Sims is a fighter. He got through with only one more hit but that hit was a PH HR. I don't know why they PH #2 in the order SHH Profar. There was nobody on, Solano is a RHH, The only reason I can think of is Solano said I can hit this guy. The HR was meaningless.

The turning point for the Twins was the 4th inning. Bottom of the order who many think are automatic outs. But Julien singled, then Vazquez singled but Twins have no trouble of putting runners on base & even putting them in scoring position, Twins' problem is clutch hitting with RISP especially in close games, Martin provided that spark to start our big rally with a 2 run double. 

By the time Waldron got to Wallner he was well cooked in the game. In a critical game Waldron would have been taken out of the oven a long ago. Fortunately for Wallner, he wasn't & Wallner got the chance of sticking a fork in him when he served up a big juicy meatball. Wallner's HR was awesome but not clutch.

We are fortunate to face STL & ATL at this time. Both are spiraling down. CLE & KC have a tough rest of Aug. We should take the lead in the division before that, Go Twins!

[Whitey333]

Nice win Twins.  1 of 3 against a very good Padre team, meh.  3 of 4 against a mediocre Rangers team. Kind of follows the season.  We do well against struggling teams and poorly against teams with winning records.  I believe we are 30-39 against those teams above .500.   Hopefully we can take care of things on thus 9 gamehomestead.  Go Twins..

[Blyleven2011]

40 minutes ago, Doctor Gast said:

  

We are fortunate to face STL & ATL at this time. Both are spiraling down. CLE & KC have a tough rest of Aug. We should take the lead in the division before that, Go Twins!

We should take the lead but can we hold it  ...

It's a crazy  3 team race  for the division title ...

Some days I have the enthusiasm  and some days I don't  ...

[MMMordabito]

2 hours ago, mikelink45 said:

Don't forget the rearview mirror.  KC is tied with us.  And with tie breakers is ahead of us in the wild card standings. We cannot afford to keep rolling over with the good teams - we need to at least break even. 

The Twins already have the tie-breaker with KC - 7 wins (of 13 games) in the bank.  Head-to-head is the first tie-breaker. MLB.com is just using an A-Z sort, instead of including these rules in the sort.

[Blyleven2011]

1 hour ago, Eephus said:

Any chance the Twins have a ringer Knuckleballer BP pitcher?

The Twins do have Cory Lewis  in AA  that throws a knuckleball as a starter ...

[David Maro]

Good game by SWR except for the walk problem he still struggles with.Bats took over in the 4th so he could relax and get through the 4th and 5th and get the win.

[python85]

2 hours ago, mikelink45 said:

KC is tied with us.  And with tie breakers is ahead of us in the wild card standings.

Not sure why KC is listed ahead of us on the MLB standing page, but we have already locked up the tiebreaker against them. We are 7-3 against them with 3 games to play.

[umterp23]

11 minutes ago, python85 said:

Not sure why KC is listed ahead of us on the MLB standing page, but we have already locked up the tiebreaker against them. We are 7-3 against them with 3 games to play.

Alphabetical order when record is the same, pretty lazy on MLB website

[umterp23]

Good morning all, not a blog contributor by any means, but I did put one together yesterday in case anyone wants to follow along on Road to Playoffs.  

Go Twins

 

[DJL44]

44 minutes ago, Whitey333 said:

I believe we are 30-39 against those teams above .500.   Hopefully we can take care of things on thus 9 gamehomestead.  Go Twins..

If they were 33-36 against teams above .500 they would have the best record in the American League. Only 3 teams have winning records against > 500 - NYY, BAL and CLE.

[TheLeviathan]

1 hour ago, William K Johnson said:

Boy we were close to going 6-1 on this trip without Buxton and Correa.   I may be alone in this opinion, but I really like Trevor Plouffe in the booth.

I love Plouffe.  Dude is super chill and funny.

[USAFChief]

11 hours ago, TheLeviathan said:

We'd have won this game if Rocco wasn't such an idiot about pitcher usage.  Think about how much better our record would be if the previous 126 games were done exactly how some toxic game thread knob would've recommended:  We pitch Ober-Alcala-Jax-Duran every game.  I mean...duh.  You worry about winning today.  Tomorrow is Tomorrow.  We all know that good management is done by completely disregarding all future outcomes and recklessly throwing everything at random games in August.

Ruining their careers?  Worry about today.  Arm fatigue?  Throw with your other arm snowflake, we're winning today dammit!  What if they're having an off day?  Simple: have them all warmed up at all times throughout the game so that if anything bad goes wrong you instantly replace them.  Like, Ober throws a ball?  Go get one of the other three.  Jax has his arm fall off due to overuse?  Cool, Duran has been throwing since the night before so he'd be warm and ready to go.   

It's so simple and yet Rocco can't figure it out. 

Moron.

You've been missing since Saturday. 

Interesting. 

[Twins_Fan_in_NJ]

I'm on the SWR bandwagon. Dude battles out there and isn't afraid of the moment. Health allowing, he's going to be a good one.

[LambchoP]

SWR is looking more and more confident out there with each outing. Dude hit 96 MPH multiple times. He really has saved this rotation this year. Hopefully Buck is back this weekend and Correa soon after. We need our best bats out there everyday, because a playoff spot is not something we can just coast to this year. We need to sweep or take 2 of 3 against these losing teams like STL. Let's make up some ground on CLE this home stand, and create some distance between us and KC.

[Hubie29]

11 hours ago, TheLeviathan said:

We'd have won this game if Rocco wasn't such an idiot about pitcher usage.  Think about how much better our record would be if the previous 126 games were done exactly how some toxic game thread knob would've recommended:  We pitch Ober-Alcala-Jax-Duran every game.  I mean...duh.  You worry about winning today.  Tomorrow is Tomorrow.  We all know that good management is done by completely disregarding all future outcomes and recklessly throwing everything at random games in August.

Ruining their careers?  Worry about today.  Arm fatigue?  Throw with your other arm snowflake, we're winning today dammit!  What if they're having an off day?  Simple: have them all warmed up at all times throughout the game so that if anything bad goes wrong you instantly replace them.  Like, Ober throws a ball?  Go get one of the other three.  Jax has his arm fall off due to overuse?  Cool, Duran has been throwing since the night before so he'd be warm and ready to go.   

It's so simple and yet Rocco can't figure it out. 

Moron.

Is this supposed to be funny? You should go into standup and get booed off stage.  Nobody says what you imply.  It's a fact Rocco can't figure out alot of things and his managing is questionable at best.