Rays 7, Twins 5: More Harrison Bader Heroics Not Enough to Overcome Bullpen's Inability to Field Position

[Hans Birkeland]

Image courtesy of © Bruce Kluckhohn-Imagn Images

Box Score:
Starting Pitcher: Joe Ryan: 6 IP, 6 H, 2 ER, 1 BB, 8 K (97 Pitches, 68 Strikes, 70.1%)
Home Runs: Byron Buxton (20), Harrison Bader (10)
Bottom 3 WPA: Justin Topa (-.407), Griffin Jax (-.340), Royce Lewis (-.139)
Win Probability Chart (Via Fangraphs):

The Twins seem intent on delaying their time of death, winning in dramatic fashion against a good Rays team on back-to-back days to start this holiday weekend series. Despite all the losing and all the injuries, the team entered Sunday's game four games back of a Wild Card spot.

The one remaining consistently good pitcher the Twins can trot out every fifth day is Joe Ryan, and he took the ball hoping to deliver a sweep and (maybe) earn an All-Star nod for himself. He started strong, hitting 97 MPH with his fastball and striking out the side in the first.

Drew Rasmussen started for the Rays, and was immediately rocked by Byron Buxton pulverizing a cutter 414 feet to start the game off 1-0. Rasmussen is pretty good, and worked through the rest of the inning unscathed. He also had the luxury of emptying the tank early, as he was scheduled for just two innings of work to preserve his twice-surgically-repaired elbow ahead of the All-Star break.

The Rays are opportunists, and the light-hitting Taylor Walls got a split-change from Ryan in the second that hit the corner down and in, rather than down and away. Thus, the pitch floated right into Walls's bat path and traveled 368 feet to tie the game at one. Ryan said after the game that he liked the pitch call from Christian Vázquez, and accepted responsibility for the failure to execute.

The visitors struck again in the fourth.  After Jose Caballero blooped a single that landed on Trevor Larnach's foot, Jonathan Aranda got an 0-2 fastball that got a bit too much of the strike zone, and the breakout first baseman lashed it into the right-field corner to score Caballero. Ryan did settle down from there, striking out Josh Lowe on a brilliant little backdoor slider before getting Walls to pop out on the first pitch.

The bulk pitcher for the Rays was Joe Boyle, a reclamation project they acquired by trading one of their more successful reclamation projects in Jeffrey Springs. Boyle flashed good stuff, sitting 98-99 with the fastball and mixing in an effective split-change and slider. He pitched around a Buxton single and a Willi Castro walk in the third by striking out Larnach and Carlos Correa, before carving up Brooks Lee, Matt Wallner and Royce Lewis in the fourth, the latter two striking out haplessly.

Ryan showed some good poise in the sixth. He thought he had struck out Junior Caminero on a slider on the black, and was taking his customary strikeout stroll. He then realized the pitch was called a ball, and allowed a single on the next pitch. After starting the next hitter, Aranda, 2-0, Vazquez called for a chat to settle his pitcher down. But the umpire ruled that Ryan was attempting to start his delivery before Aranda made eye contact with him, so a pitch clock violation was called on Ryan. That made the count 3-0, but Ryan recovered to induce a pop-up, then retired Mangum to end his outing.

The Twins finally made some noise against Boyle in the sixth. Larnach squibbed a double down the left-field line, and Lee hit a sharp grounder off Caballero's glove. As the ball trickled away, Larnach tried to score and slid in just safe, confirmed after a Tampa Bay challenge.

The teams traded zeroes until the eighth, when Griffin Jax got into his usual trouble, allowing two seeing-eye singles to begin the inning before a sacrifice bunt advanced the runners. Caminero then hit a tapper in front of the mound that Vázquez tried to field and tag the pinch-runner, Christopher Morel, at home—too late. Aranda then hit a similar tapper that scooted past Jax's glove, because of course it did. In a hard, vessel-straining blink, it was 4-2 Rays.

But the Rays forgot that Harrison Bader was available off the bench. Hard-throwing lefty Mason Montgomery struck out Buxton to start the bottom of the eighth, but walked Castro. Bader came out hacking, missing a 99-MPH fastball to begin the at-bat, but on the third pitch, Montgomery left a slider to Bader's liking, and he demolished it just inside the left-field foul pole. Tie game.

Louis Varland and Pete Fairbanks pitched scoreless ninth innings to send us to the 10th. Justin Topa immediately allowed Tampa to take the lead once more, with Yandy Díaz lacing a liner to the wall in right-center. Caballero then bunted again, and it wasn't even a good bunt, but Topa still managed to field and throw the ball past Kody Clemens at first, allowing Caballero to reach third and, yes, score on a sacrifice fly the next at-bat. That made it 7-4 Rays.

The Twins would get the tying run to the plate in the bottom half, but Brooks Lee tapped out to end it.

Stray Observations:

-Christian Vázquez threw out two runners, the pretty fast Jake Mangum in the second, and the ultra-fast Chandler Simpson in the third. He's been really good of late against the running game.

-Boyle finished five innings with zero earned runs and seven strikeouts. Pretty good for Triple-A depth.

-Can we stop with the stat-washing of Griffin Jax (Glen Perkins actually tried to make an All-Star case for Jax at the start of his inning)? He has not been good this year, despite, yes, having good pitches and being a talented pitcher with great peripheral stats. His mental game is very poor, and has been since he entered the league. Remember 2023? The game plan has to be, put the ball in play, get him rattled, and pounce on the inevitable mistake. It's a winning formula until he proves it's not.

What’s Next: After an off day Monday, Simeon Woods Richardson (4-4, 4.41 ERA) will take on the Cubs' Shota Imanaga (5-2, 2.78 ERA) at Target Field. Imanaga has just returned to action after missing time with a hamstring strain, but has been a good find for the Cubs. Woods Richardson has been pretty good since his first start following his demotion against Texas, with a 1.71 ERA in his last four.

Postgame Interviews:

Bullpen Usage Chart:

	WED	THU	FRI	SAT	SUN	TOT
Adams	0	0	0	68	0	68
Stewart	15	0	23	0	12	50
Durán	9	0	0	34	0	43
Varland	12	0	19	0	9	40
Jax	14	0	0	12	13	39
Coulombe	9	0	11	14	0	34
Topa	0	16	0	0	9	25
Sands	0	0	5	19	0	24
Wentz	0	0	0	0	0	0

 

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[palmspringstwinsfan]

Why not let Varland pitcher the 9th?? He only threw 9 pitches in the 8th and tomorrow is an off day. Trusting Topa in that situation was/is/and always will be a mistake. 

[MMMordabito]

Ryan getting snubbed is a joke.

[thelanges5]

Good series win. Twins second to the Rockies in pitcher fielding errors. 

[DocBauer]

I'm happy they won the series against a quality club. I only got to watch enough of the game to see how good Ryan looked, and how bad Topa looked.

Topa hasn't exactly had a bad season. He's perfectly acceptable as one of the last men in the pen. And let's be honest, the pen was pretty tapped coming in today's game. The "plan" would have been to score enough runs with Ryan pitching to NOT go extra innings. 

But this goes to show what can happen when your rotation depth has been wiped out by 3 injuries, and also, at some point, EVERY SINGLE PEN ARM will be asked at some point to pitch in a high leverage situation.

The horrible throw to 1B by Topa never should have happened. Hard to say that single play lost the game, but it was a major error. I'm certainly not ignoring Jax having a bad day. But day by day, week to week, season to season, Jax is a very good pen arm. It's unfortunate that today was not a good day for him. And I'm not picking on Topa directly either. The Twins have won games against pen arms, some quite good ones, so it works both ways. Just saying, it shows how difficult it is to build a pen where even your 7th and 8th guys sometimes have to be trusted.

It's still a good series win against a good team.

[Doctor Gast]

1 hour ago, palmspringstwinsfan said:

Why not let Varland pitcher the 9th?? He only threw 9 pitches in the 8th and tomorrow is an off day. Trusting Topa in that situation was/is/and always will be a mistake. 

That's what I thought Palmsprings. Varland was a strong SP, he is one RP that I'd trust to go an extra inning. If it were Alcala, he'd be called to pitch another inning. I certainly wouldn't trust Topa for that very high leverage 10th.

[Doctor Gast]

Twins winning 2 out of 3 & lost a very close, hard-fighting, extra-inning game against a very good team. Is nothing to be ashamed of. I don't blame the players for this loss.

[DJL44]

Is Travis Adams going to get the traditional day-off option to the minors?

[DJL44]

Two out of three against Tampa is a good series.

[AceWrigley]

Embarrassing fielding by Twin's pitchers.

[Mike Sixel]

303 hitters have at least 100 at bats. 2 are worse than Vazquez. No amount of defense makes up for that. He's not just worse, he's a lot worse. 

[Blyleven2011]

Who do you blame in a loss that should or could of been a win ...

I agree that Jax might have a mental laspe when a runner reaches but Sloppy eighth inning of defense and sloppy defense in the 10th results in losses especially when score is close ...

Great that we won the series , even though we didn't sweep the Rays it might have been one of the most exciting series of the year , we had another chance to walk off a third in a row  ...

Can't always get what you want ...

[Baumer67]

All year the Twins have struggled on routine Little League fielding plays!

[mikelink45]

Fun to see the writer take a chance and call out Jax - so far no one has taken on the challenge.

[DJL44]

1 hour ago, Mike Sixel said:

303 hitters have at least 100 at bats. 2 are worse than Vazquez. No amount of defense makes up for that. He's not just worse, he's a lot worse. 

Is one of them Dashawn Keirsey? No, you said 100 AB cutoff. Keirsey doesn't have 100 AB for his career yet. Hopefully he'll never get there. 

Throwing out two base stealers today was pretty huge. That isn't something that happens every game, though.

[Western SD Fan]

This game is like some we see throughout the season.  Had you asked us to go into the series that we won the first two games and had a chance to sweep with Joe Ryan on the mound, we would have been ecstatic with the result.  It's unfortunate the way the game turned out, but I'm going to keep my expectations in check and be happy with the weekend's result.  

As for the game, I'm happy to see that the offense got up off the mat and fought back and not roll over like we have in so many of these games this year and lose 2-1 and saddle Ryan with the hard-luck loss.  We have constantly made the point on TD in the comments and in articles that the lack of focus, fundamentals, and attention to detail will eventually haunt us.  Looks like another refresher in INF fielding practice with PFP is in order.  The Rays are fast as a team, but the Cubs aren't exactly that much slower than the Rays.  I also liked the aggressive send by Watkins for Larnach to score and Wallner attempting to steal another base.  Even though Wallner was ruled out, it's at least shows that someone wants to show initiative and recognize that station to station baserunning isn't working, whether that is just Wallner or a directive from the coaching staff.

[Wedman13]

3 hours ago, AceWrigley said:

Embarrassing fielding by Twin's pitchers.

More embarrassing is the year by Wallner.  If he wasn't 'from here' he'd be gone.  There has to be someone in AAA or AA that can make contact with a baseball?  A below average fielding corner outfielder, 27 yrs old,(almost 28) , hitting .200 isn't an MLB player.  But I know many in this forum think otherwise.

Not the biggest TK homer, but he would never play him.

[Wedman13]

2 hours ago, Baumer67 said:

All year the Twins have struggled on routine Little League fielding plays!

Couldn't believe my ears.  Rays have guys on 1st and 2nd, no outs.  They are bunting.  I think it was Perkins tonight (?) says 'the twins don't practice or have a defense for this.' ???  Bunt, no one rotates to 3rd, so Lewis to 1st.  Then no intentional walk?

 

I don't rip Rocco but it was so basic and irritating.

[knothole61]

3 hours ago, mikelink45 said:

Fun to see the writer take a chance and call out Jax - so far no one has taken on the challenge.

mike, I'm maintaining my self-imposed prohibition on making any comments about Jax. I spent two months declaring that "he just can't be counted on in the clutch." and then after a magnificent inning against Seattle that culminated with a strikeout of the otherworldly Cal Raleigh, I asked for forgiveness and declared him the Second Coming...so, mum's the word!

Justin Topa, however, is another story altogether! 

[DJL44]

6 hours ago, Wedman13 said:

More embarrassing is the year by Wallner.  If he wasn't 'from here' he'd be gone.  There has to be someone in AAA or AA that can make contact with a baseball?  A below average fielding corner outfielder, 27 yrs old,(almost 28) , hitting .200 isn't an MLB player.  But I know many in this forum think otherwise.

Not the biggest TK homer, but he would never play him.

Batters on the team with a lower OPS than Wallner

Correa, Lee, Lewis, Vazquez, Keirsey, Jeffers, France

but, by all means, let's make Wallner the scapegoat.

[Whitey333]

Nice series against the Rays.  Cubs coming in next.  They are hot and very good.  Hope we can win at least one game.  Co

[David HK]

Heard Reusse on a podcast the other day.  He said the Twinks' new motto is, "whatever it takes to lose."  They always seem to find a way to p*ss away a winnable game.  

On the bright side, look who's back! 😂

Postscript:  White Sox Watch-  Surprisingly, gave one up to the ROCKIES!  So we maintain our lead!

[David HK]

Haw haw haw!!! 🤣😁😅😝😂

I love how the pop-up video ad on these pages is always Manuel Margot actually getting a big hit! 🤣

[DJL44]

9 minutes ago, David HK said:

Heard Reusse on a podcast the other day.

My condolences

[jmlease1]

I'll admit, I'm always a little blown away seeing pitchers throw so poorly to 1B. There's been several really wild ones this season on what should be a routine play (not just from the bullpen, either) and every time one goes flying past 1B with basically no chance I wonder "what in the hell is going on there?" It's got to be a mental thing where they start thinking about it, rather than just effing throwing the ball, but it's the sort of mistake that really sticks out and drives you batty.

This series is one where the order of the games probably impacts our perception of the series too much; If we win game 1, lose game 2, and win game 3 to win the series, everyone probably feels pretty good about taking down a quality TB team (TB is consistently good these days, and they've been very good at retooling on the fly. they might have awful stadium issues, but their professional staff is excellent). Lose the last game when you're gunning for a sweep and it's a bit of a downer.

I didn't hate the Bader signing when the Twins made it (though I was a little nervous about the money and whether he'd get overused in LF) but it's really been a good one. The defense has been as advertised, and the flair he shows out there is a nice, fun bonus. There's been enough big hits and the homers have more than compensated for additional Ks. Pretty good in a season when we haven't actually needed the Buxton insurance.

[Doctor Gast]

I saw the highlights, Vazquez did a great job controlling a dangerous running game. Bader was awesome. Jax & Topa were not.

[David HK]

16 minutes ago, jmlease1 said:

I'll admit, I'm always a little blown away seeing pitchers throw so poorly to 1B. There's been several really wild ones this season on what should be a routine play (not just from the bullpen, either) and every time one goes flying past 1B with basically no chance I wonder "what in the hell is going on there?" It's got to be a mental thing where they start thinking about it, rather than just effing throwing the ball, but it's the sort of mistake that really sticks out and drives you batty.

This series is one where the order of the games probably impacts our perception of the series too much; If we win game 1, lose game 2, and win game 3 to win the series, everyone probably feels pretty good about taking down a quality TB team (TB is consistently good these days, and they've been very good at retooling on the fly. they might have awful stadium issues, but their professional staff is excellent). Lose the last game when you're gunning for a sweep and it's a bit of a downer.

I didn't hate the Bader signing when the Twins made it (though I was a little nervous about the money and whether he'd get overused in LF) but it's really been a good one. The defense has been as advertised, and the flair he shows out there is a nice, fun bonus. There's been enough big hits and the homers have more than compensated for additional Ks. Pretty good in a season when we haven't actually needed the Buxton insurance.

All good points.  Especially the first one, though-- my God, these guys are supposed to be major league baseball players, there is just no effing excuse.

[LambchoP]

Do the Twins not have PFP or something? Most of our pitchers have looked like little leaguers trying to field their positions lol. Topa should never be out there in the 9th inning. Didn't like the pen management in this one. Winnable game for sure. Too many mental mistakes.

[JD-TWINS]

20 hours ago, palmspringstwinsfan said:

Why not let Varland pitcher the 9th?? He only threw 9 pitches in the 8th and tomorrow is an off day. Trusting Topa in that situation was/is/and always will be a mistake. 

He did pitch the 9th - it was Sunday afternoon and he threw 2 innings on Friday night and had pitched Tuesday/Wednesday as well.

[JD-TWINS]

8 hours ago, DJL44 said:

Batters on the team with a lower OPS than Wallner

Correa, Lee, Lewis, Vazquez, Keirsey, Jeffers, France

but, by all means, let's make Wallner the scapegoat.

Guys with lower OPS than Wallner since he has been back from his pulled leg muscle? ….. ZERO. He’s somewhere between ,195 - .205 BA, & there is no defense for that!