Twins 3, Red Sox 9: Another Gut Punch Has Twins On Ropes

[Sherry Cerny]

The Twins had a glimmer of hope in what needed to be a bounceback game, after dropping the first half of a Sunday doubleheader. It was extinguished in a torrent of missed opportunities and Red Sox runs, and now, the team is in real trouble.

Image courtesy of © Eric Canha-Imagn Images

Box Score
SP: Zebby Matthews 4.2 IP, 2 H, 1 ER, 2 BB, 6 K (87 pitches, 55 strikes (63%))
Home Runs: N/A
Top 3 WPA: Cole Irvin (-.405), Cole Sands (.-202), Carlos Correa (-.079)

Win Probability Chart (via FanGraphs)

Zebby Matthews made his eighth start of the season against Boston in game two on Sunday, a makeup game to the rainout on Saturday. Matthews has been a really positive developmental story this season. It’s not easy to start in the league as a starting pitcher, and harder still to come in during a pennant race, but he's truly holding his own. 

Crucially, the youngster pitched well enough to provide himself with the luxury of pitching around Triston Casas twice--something Pablo López couldn't afford to do when Casas came up the first two times in the first game of the day.

Matthews kept a calm demeanor, and the longer he stayed, the more locked in he became. The offense showed up big-time (by their recent standards) in the fifth inning, giving the kid some run support from none other than Kyle Farmer and Christian Vázquez, who have both been on hitting streaks over the past 13 games.

Farmer got the fun started with a single to first, followed by a single from Vázquez and another single from Byron Buxton bringing home Farmer to get the Twins on the board first. After the Buxton RBI, Trevor Larnach singled on a hard sharp line drive to right field bringing in Vasquez to go up 2-0 on the Red Sox. 

Matthews didn’t get to finish out the fifth. Manager Rocco Baldelli replaced him with Cole Irvin with two outs, one on base and lefty Jarren Duran coming in. Irvin walked his primary assigned man, though, which brought Romy Gonzalez to the plate. Improbably, yet predictably, the light-hitting Gonzalez clubbed a three-run homer, giving the Red Sox the 3-2 lead in a split second. 

Irvin continued to implode as his appearance went on, hitting Wilyer Abreu with a sinker that didn’t move. Irvin was taken out of the game after throwing 25 pitches and recording just two outs. Cole Sands came in to prevent runners from doing any further damage in the sixth inning, but after a single to load the bases, he hit Ceddanne Rafaela in the same place as Abreu, walking in a run and putting the Red Sox up 4-2. Then, in the blink of a weary eye, a double on a fly ball from Duran brought in three more to run up the score: 7-2. 

The bleeding didn’t stop. Sands was replaced by Michael Tonkin, who gave up two more runs before the inning closed out at 9-2.

The Twins rallied in the eighth, managing to load the bases and bringing up Willi Castro with two outs. Castro battled through the at-bat, refusing to go down without a fight. Watching Castro’s appearances has been a fun part of the game, he continues to stay disciplined and make the pitchers work, driving up the count. Josh Winckowski was brought in to relieve starter Kutter Crawford, and Castro worked him up to a full count before taking a walk, bringing in a run and another RBI to narrow the gap to 9-3. Carlos Santana came up to bat, and while he battled, too, he ended up hitting a harmless fly ball to kill the rally.  

What’s Next? 
The Twins have Monday off, which is welcome news. They head home for the final week of the campaign, starting with a three-game set against the NL-worst Miami Marlins, which is even more welcome news. The only question, alas: Does it matter who or where this team plays? Or have they become an unstoppable losing machine?

Postgame Interviews
 

Bullpen Usage Spreadsheet

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[adjacent]

It is not on the ropes. It is down and the ref count is at 8

[thelanges5]

KC and Twins seemingly don’t want the WC spot. 

Twins have Marlins and Os

KC has Nats and Braves

Det has Rays and ChiSox

Seattle has Stros and As

[chinmusic]

17 games over seems like a long time ago. Bitter pill.

[h2oface]

How about that pace? Yup. Pace does not exist. No need to ever really project it. Individually, or as a team. But hang on to it if you must, pacers.

Baldelli was announced to be next up after the break on the post game, but he was a no show. Then sent out the kid, Matthews, instead. Talk about leadership. Oh well. Maybe he was in the clubhouse injecting the high paid vets and best in MLB bullpen and fearsome mostly low average and mostly mediocre OPS offense with that famous Baldelli inspiration. Or maybe he was attending to all the players that say they are better than this and trying to stop them from all choking in 28 part unison.

All expanding the playoffs does is put teams that don't deserve to be competing for the championship into the mix, and tends to give us a World Series of at least one mediocre team on a streak, instead of the World Series that teams actually earned the right to be there in the playoffs AND the marathon regular season.

[twins_89]

It's tough to win enough to make the playoffs when you have 3 rookie starters who only go 4-5 innings followed by a shaky bullpen.

[hitterscount]

14 minutes ago, twins_89 said:

It's tough to win enough to make the playoffs when you have 3 rookie starters who only go 4-5 innings followed by a shaky bullpen.

The rookie starters, IMO, been the lone bright stop over the last 6-weeks. They have done everything you could expect... as far as 4-5 innings, you may need to check-in with the MIA manager, he likes pulling starters at low pitch counts because his little tablet dictates him to do so. 

[JD-TWINS]

17 minutes ago, hitterscount said:

The rookie starters, IMO, been the lone bright stop over the last 6-weeks. They have done everything you could expect... as far as 4-5 innings, you may need to check-in with the MIA manager, he likes pulling starters at low pitch counts because his little tablet dictates him to do so. 

Ober’s last 3 starts have all been good & Team is 0-3.

Lopez has been performing at a high level. 2.01 ERA over previous ELEVEN STARTS. He blew up today! Hopefully, he’ll be ready to go Friday!

Rookies have been up & down - until their last 3 starts over the previous few days (really good) they were pretty rough. I think 4-5 innings of 2 runs or less is most that can be expected. Can’t whine about length of their starts as they are all in high end of innings expectations and the competition (Detroit) throws out “openers” 2 of every 5 starts. Gotta figure out how to cover the innings, period. Everyone has a Pen that’s spent - particularly if they can’t score, like our club.

[JD-TWINS]

1 hour ago, thelanges5 said:

KC and Twins seemingly don’t want the WC spot. 

Twins have Marlins and Os

KC has Nats and Braves

Det has Rays and ChiSox

Seattle has Stros and As

Royals are winless over last 6 games & now they are headed out on the road for reminder of regular season. 4 runs over last 5 games. 

Game back of Tigers & Royals……..just need to tie one of them. Seems we need 4 of next 6 or we are probably toast.

Gotta assume Detroit wins 4 of 6 at home.

If we win 3 games, Mariners have to win 5 of 6 to get past us.

Ober has 2 starts left - Lopez has 1 start left. Rookies all have 1 start each. Need 4 of those. Offense is not much better than non-existent……..gotta pick it up at home!

Pen should be back to pretty rested by Tuesday.

[DJL44]

14 minutes ago, JD-TWINS said:

Lopez has been performing at a high level. 2.01 ERA over previous ELEVEN STARTS. He blew up today! Hopefully, he’ll be ready to go Friday!

Triston Casas won't be there Friday so that should help.

[jkcarew]

Rocco so terrified of losing the game in the 5th inning…that he lost the game in the 5th inning.

The horrible offense has turned Rocco from a guy who makes questionable bullpen moves into one that makes delirious bullpen moves.

[MMMordabito]

[USAFChief]

I would like someone to defend turning your season over to Irwin, in the 5th.

 

We need a MLB manager.

[ashbury]

Hard to believe a waiver-wire pickup like Cole Irvin didn't prove to be a lights-out member of the bullpen.

[USAFChief]

2 minutes ago, ashbury said:

Hard to believe a waiver-wire pickup like Cole Irvin didn't prove to be a lights-out member of the bullpen.

With pretty much the entire pen available, that's the guy Rocco turns to. Who not only turns 1 on, 2 out, 2 run lead into a 1 run deficit, Rocco brings him back out in the 6th to start another rally.

[Nashvilletwin]

Well, I guess the plan is to just keep doing the same things with the same people…..finish up the year and hope for the best. And then make all the right comments when we come up short.

Or, alternatively, the Nephew could make a statement to try to instil some urgency and accountability into this franchise while there is still some time.  Will he? Doubt it.  But it’s not a silly idea.  Besides, he probably will make the move early in the off-season anyway.

This team has lost its confidence and it is not getting it back without some drastic action. 

 

[1985Fan]

As I’ve said before, this team can’t hit. They pile up stats and wins against the sub .500 teams and when they play a team with decent or good pitching, the hitters don’t know what to do. Today’s pitching implosion is just another step in the complete collapse. 
When this team gets behind, everyone from pitcher to hitters loses confidence and the game is over. Everything goes bad at the same time from defense to hitting and everything in between. 
I’ll hold out hope that they can start a win streak and that today was bottom. That’s because I’m a (idiot) fan and I’ve been watching and cheering them on all year, so a few more games can’t be much worse. 

[Whitey333]

Just another loss in an absolutely terrible display of baseball over the past 6 weeks or so.  I believe they are 11 and 22 in their last 33 games.  Pretty pathetic.  And they are losing so badly.  Twins problems seem simple enough:  no offense, no defense, no manager, and very little pitching.  The choke continues.

[D.C Twins]

Rocco committed managerial malpractice in this game with his use of a rested bullpen in a must win game. 

It is long past time to try someone new and the Rocco apologists shouldn't mind because they seem to think that managing really doesn't matter much... 

[KirbyDome89]

1 hour ago, ashbury said:

Hard to believe a waiver-wire pickup like Cole Irvin didn't prove to be a lights-out member of the bullpen.

Those 2 arb years though....

[twinssporto]

In all seriousness, if the Twins make the playoffs they will be blown out. They will be lucky to get through game two. I saw what this team was doing 4 weeks ago and knew the outcome. I really hope this post doesn't age well but I really doubt that will happen...so many issues to fix...

I got an email from the Senior VP of Twins ticket sales last week. Espousing what a great value and fun having a suite or season tickets would do for my company...I should post what I told him...

[knothole61]

1 hour ago, USAFChief said:

With pretty much the entire pen available, that's the guy Rocco turns to. Who not only turns 1 on, 2 out, 2 run lead into a 1 run deficit, Rocco brings him back out in the 6th to start another rally.

Madness!

[knothole61]

17 minutes ago, twinssporto said:

In all seriousness, if the Twins make the playoffs they will be blown out. They will be lucky to get through game two. I saw what this team was doing 4 weeks ago and knew the outcome. I really hope this post doesn't age well but I really doubt that will happen...so many issues to fix...

I got an email from the Senior VP of Twins ticket sales last week. Espousing what a great value and fun having a suite or season tickets would do for my company...I should post what I told him...

"Any given team on any given day..."

[howeda7]

Even though Falvey will bring another analytics robot, Rocco needs to go. He's totally lost the team. As bad as the bullpen is, the offense is worse. Painful to watch. It's hard to even want them to limp into the play-offs. This season just needs to come to a merciful end. The wish list for this team is new owners, a new GM and new manager. But I'll take two out of 3 and be OK with one out of 3. 

[Hosken Bombo Disco]

It’s always the offense’s fault. A late two-run lead is a two-run lead, regardless if the score is 3-1 or 7-5. I guess that applies more to the last Cleveland series than the Boston series. 

On the radio, Molitor mentioned the top of the sixth inning, when the score was 3-2. The Twins batters needed to work some counts there and not give Boston a quick inning to get back to the bat rack right away. Instead, the Twins did not take any strikes and saw a total of five pitches. A couple of hard hit balls that went for outs but that’s how it goes. More important is you need to make Bostons guys stand out in the field a bit and cool them off. “But that’s old fashioned thinking nowadays”, Molitor said. 

[mikelink45]

5 hours ago, USAFChief said:

I would like someone to defend turning your season over to Irwin, in the 5th.

 

We need a MLB manager.

Go back to the article when he came. Just like Richard's. We shouldn't have seen this coming. But, we are always filled with hope. I will never support only your starter. Well they're still dealing.

[Blyleven2011]

I wished that the doubleheader would have been rained out and we'd make it up when we were playing better at the end of the season ....

Not going to happen  , we aren't going to get better that is , most of the players are lost and it's definitely a reflection of the coaching and leadership  ....

We need major league professional coaches and manager  , 

[Doctor Wu]

Brutal losses, just brutal. At least the Cleveland games were close ones, and there was some expectation that we might win some, of not all of those games. Not so in this series. Ugh. So, when does the Timberwolves season start?

[CRF]

As much as we'd all like to see the team get into the playoffs...they would get trounced anyway by a better team. What good would that do? Maybe this collapse is exactly what needs to happen...so changes will be made. A house cleaning is way over due. I certainly don't expect the GM(s), the manager, and the coaching staff to get fired, even though that's what needs to happen here.  This ownership would never do that...they're not that smart, and I don't know that they even care enough to realize that. 

[Peter]

Need to finish season strong!!!! 4-2 at very worst which I think will be enough to eek out playoffs. Don’t want to hear vikings talk or can’t wait for wolves season 💩love both teams along with wild but this is TWINS chat room NOT Vikings/twolves/wild chat!!! Day off comes at best time-we ALL need to support our twins this week/watch every game and get them in playoffs!!!