Dodgers 5, Twins 2: Twins Start with a Bang, Then Barely Muster a Whimper

[Nate Palmer]

Image courtesy of © Gary A. Vasquez-Imagn Images

Box Score
Starting Pitcher: David Festa 5.1 IP, 4 H, 4 ER, 1 BB, 5 K (81 pitches, 50 strikes (61.7%)
Home Runs: Byron Buxton (23)
Bottom 3 WPA: David Festa (-0.184), Willi Castro (-0.171), Harrison Bader (-0.168)

Win Probability Chart (via FanGraphs) 

The trade deadline looms, and many contenders are smelling the blood in the water when it comes to the Minnesota Twins. After dropping two out of three to the Rockies, that scent is only getting stronger. There may be some time to convince those with the power to supplement the current roster to do so, but one of the best teams in baseball (the Los Angeles Dodgers) stands in the way. The Dodgers are also one of those teams that would love to swoop up some Twins players they will get a close look at in this series. 

If the team wasn’t tough enough, the individual player was. That is two-way phenom Shohei Ohtani, who got the start Monday evening. As Ohtani made his sixth start of the season against the Twins, he had logged only 9 innings, as the Dodgers are building him back into starting games as a pitcher while he continues to be their everyday designated hitter. However, he has pitched well, with a 1.00 ERA coming into the night. 

The Twins' own All-Star was ready for the challenge of facing Ohtani. Byron Buxton was the leadoff hitter once again, and he looked like he wanted to make the Home Run Derby a weekly occurrence. Pouncing on Ohtani’s second pitch, a sweeper, Buxton put the Twins up 1-0. 

Ohtani wouldn’t let that stand long. After shutting the Twins out for the remainder of the inning, in his at-bat for the Dodgers' half of the first inning, Ohtani matched and raised Buxton. After Twins starter David Festa walked Mookie Betts, Ohtani hit his own home run, putting the Dodgers up 2-1. As mentioned by Cory Provus on the broadcast, that first inning makes Ohtani the third pitcher to give up and hit a home run in the first inning of the same game.

Ups and Downs of Festa
Festa had a very up-and-down night. With the first inning lowlight already MENTIONED, Festa did go on from there to put down nine straight Dodger hitters, the final of those nine being a strikeout on a foul tip of Ohtani. The next hitter (to begin the fourth inning for LA) resulted in a Will Smith home run, though, extending the Dodgers' lead to 3-1. Unfortunately, that pattern would repeat itself in the sixth inning. Festa would strike out Ohtani looking, but then give up another home run to Smith. 

The young righty left after 5 ⅓ innings after being stung for four runs. The long ball marked Festa’s outing. If the home run can be limited moving forward, this outing had plenty of positive moments to it. 

Royce Rakes and Runs
After hitting two home runs in Sunday’s win over Colorado, Royce Lewis continued to have success at the plate. It wasn’t quite as explosive, but he hit singles in his first two at-bats. His first came off the bat with incredible speed, a 113.7 mph exit velocity. What may have caught the most attention was that after Lewis’s second single, he stole his first base of the season. 

Lewis would tack on his third hit of the night with a double in the eighth inning. Each hit looked good from process to result, which is a positive development for Lewis and the Twins. A productive Lewis may be one of the biggest trade deadline "moves" the Twins could have made around their roster. 

The Twins tried to make noise in the eighth inning, which contained Lewis's double. It was shut down, however, as Tommy Edman snagged a screaming liner off the bat of Harrison Bader to end the inning. If the eighth inning had noise, the ninth inning brought the drama. 

Tanner Scott would come on in relief for the Dodgers and record one out, while walking Buxton and hitting Brooks Lee with a pitch. During Ryan Jeffers' at-bat, Scott would leave with an injury, giving way to Kirby Yates to enter in a save situation for the Dodgers. Kody Clemens hit a sacrifice fly to bring one run around and make the score 5-2. 

Then the boo birds would fly, as Carlos Correa came ot the plate with two outs and two runners on, representing the tying run. Correa did get a hold of a Yates pitch and hit it 394 feet... in front of the 395 feet center field sign and into the glove of James Outman. The Twins made the game much more interesting than most of the contest looked. In the end, though, they didn't have the answer for the Dodgers' pitching staff. 

What’s Next?
Simeon Woods Richardson has been a steady force in each of his last four starts, allowing one run or less in each outing. The Twins will need him to do that once again Tuesday. Right-hander Yoshinobu Yamamoto will go for the Dodgers. Handling Yamamoto will be a challenging task for the Twins, as the All-Star comes into the game with a 2.59 ERA. 

Postgame Interviews

Bullpen Usage Spreadsheet

	THU	FRI	SAT	SUN	MON	TOT
Sands	0	22	0	0	28	50
Topa	0	17	16	0	0	33
Misiewicz	0	0	21	0	0	21
Durán	0	0	0	16	0	16
Coulombe	0	0	12	0	0	12
Stewart	0	0	9	0	0	9
Jax	0	0	0	8	0	8
Varland	0	0	0	0	7	7

 

View full article

[thelanges5]

1 for 8 RISP, 13 LOB - May has an era of 5.79 over his last seven games. Shuts us down. Story of 2025!

Good to see Royce the last two games. Buck keeps doing his thing. Clemens earning that playing time and as many RBIs as Correa (that’s bad for Correa) Lou Varland looks good in the pen. 

[h2oface]

I don't know why they even play Correa at Dodger staduim. He just can't break through the boos.

Close still doesn't count.

[S Bart]

I'll follow the Twins on Tuesday night, but I am going to keep an eye on the KC game also. This 2020 Twin will be making a rare 45-year-old start. His story of playing on 23 teams with a 4.01 ERA is interesting. He was drafted by the Reds in 1999. 

 

45-Year-Old Journeyman Pitcher Set to Make MLB History Following Season Debut Tuesday

[Blyleven2011]

1 down , 2 to go ...

Wasn't a bad game , twins did put runners on in every inning but couldn't get that clutch hit to do any damage  , what is wrong with this picture , rbis do matter , we need that kind of production from our hitters ...

Has Lewis broken free of his curse  , let's hope so , he stung the ball tonight and got 3 hits , previous game in Colorado he accomplished 2 homeruns ...

 

[Riverbrian]

With the DFA of Lou Trevino and the call up of a young bullpen arm. The Dodgers have risen from 10 to 11 players with less than 3 years experience on their 26 man roster. 

The Twins arrived at Dodger Stadium with 10 players. 

The Dodgers have a record of 59-42

The Twins have a record of 48-52

I post these pre-arb totals once a series to illustrate how our Twins compare to the other 29 teams in terms of young affordable talent. 

The reason I am doing this is to show how the Twins have fallen behind in regards to development. To show that the Twins are building their roster in a similar fashion to the Dodgers and Phillies (without Dodger and Phillies Money) while the Tigers and Brewers have double the pre-arb totals.

I always post the records to fairly show the results of the efforts. To show that youth doesn't mean wins and more importantly show that youth doesn't mean losses. To show that not every team are the Brewers on the high end and not every team are the Twins on the low end. 

In the end, the Twins are spending 30 to 50 million a year to cover this development shortfall. 

[Whitey333]

They were competitive for parts of the game Monday against the Dodgers.  But it doesn't matter when your end result is another loss.  Unless of course you are Provus and Plueff who kept gushing about how great Buxton and Lewis are.  Buxton is finally having a good year.  But it took 10 years.  Lewis has had two good games in a row.  That's great but it doesn't make him a superstar.  And Audra Martin doing those tidbits during the game is numbing.  She continually babbles on and on about meaningless gibberish and talks over the game and the announcers.  She has a great voice and may be a good play by play person if she would ever stop talking and take a breath once in a while.  Can you imagine her and radio announcer Attebery working together?  There would be constant chatter and little announcing.  Sorry, just a meaningless rant on my part.  Twins are 48-52 .  That's where many of us figured this over hyped team would be.

[DJL44]

Playoff odds down to 3.5%, dropped to 9th in the wild card race.

[shimrod]

1 hour ago, Riverbrian said:

youth doesn't mean wins and more importantly show that youth doesn't mean losses.

Twins youth does mean losses. As you note, development is critical and Twins have failed at it.

[TwinsDr2021]

5 minutes ago, DJL44 said:

Playoff odds down to 3.5%, dropped to 9th in the wild card race.

For a team that relies on analytics, they can't ignore the one staring them in the face, can they? 

[chpettit19]

13 minutes ago, TwinsDr2021 said:

For a team that relies on analytics, they can't ignore the one staring them in the face, can they? 

Fangraphs has them at 15.2% so you'd obviously choose that number instead. And make up your own internal number that'd put you closer to 50/50 because you know when Lopez, Ober, and Keaschall are coming back and that's going to boost your odds. Super easy to ignore that number and look at others.

(This is sarcasm and not an endorsement of the Twins pretending like they're a contender this year. But also not really a joke because they absolutely have their own internal numbers.)

[Mike Sixel]

Four guys really came to hit. The other five? Ugh. How do you score two runs with that many  base runners?

[IndianaTwin]

7 hours ago, S Bart said:

I'll follow the Twins on Tuesday night, but I am going to keep an eye on the KC game also. This 2020 Twin will be making a rare 45-year-old start. His story of playing on 23 teams with a 4.01 ERA is interesting. He was drafted by the Reds in 1999. 

 

45-Year-Old Journeyman Pitcher Set to Make MLB History Following Season Debut Tuesday

The Royals will be his 14th team. The article says it's his 23rd season, but he debuted in 2005, so this is his 21st season. 

Looking at his baseball-reference page is pretty fascinating. He's played 20 years, but only had a bWAR above 1.6 on three occasions. He's been a starter the vast majority of the time, but only 90 career wins, primarily because he's been healthy enough to start more than 16 games in only nine of those seasons. Six of the seven seasons in which he started at least 20 games came at age 36 and later.

He's had some seasons when he's been the ultimate LOOGY, including one year when he pitched in 16 games and totaled 16 outs (5.1 innings). That year, in 4 of his 16 games, he didn't get a single out, including a day when he pitched in both ends of a double header. In Game 1, he gave up a hit and two walks to his three batters and in Game 2, he walked his only batter on five pitches, one of which was wild. That was his only day with the Angels. They dropped him and the Yankees picked him up, where he managed to plunk the only batter he faced in his first outing with the team. In 16 games, he faced 29 batters. In eight of the games, it was just one batter. 

His transaction record says he was "Granted free agency" on 14 different occasions. In his first 10 seasons, he had a combined bWAR of 3.7 and he still got 10 more seasons after that.

Oh, to be left-handed and breathing. 

 

[CRF]

If anyone was surprised by the result, I've got some ocean front property in Arizona that I want to talk to you about. 

[tony&rodney]

The game last night was interesting in several regards. The Twins seemed to make a concerted effort to run out every ground ball and fly ball, which is not the case in many games. The lack of aggressiveness cost a run (Lewis had a good secondary lead but was held up by the coach on a ground ball single by Wallner). I thought Festa pitched well. He made only about a half dozen mistakes and paid a high price for those mistakes. The Dodgers did not miss. The Dodgers pitchers made about three times as many mistakes, but only one ball made it over the fence. A couple of other balls were hit hard by the Twins though. Whether it is experience, skill, or that the Twins don't have power bats we can see the Twins miss or don't (at least didn't last night) make the opponent's pitchers pay big for their mistakes. Lastly, the Dodgers star relief pitchers looked beatable. One left via injury after ineffectiveness and one was saved by a foot. The price for Duran or Jax to the Dodgers should have gone up by the close of last night's game.

[TwinsDr2021]

15 minutes ago, CRF said:

If anyone was surprised by the result, I've got some ocean front property in Arizona that I want to talk to you about. 

I am interested, which ocean? 🤣

[MMMordabito]

Implement the ABS Challenge system yesterday.

[AceBee]

42 minutes ago, Mike Sixel said:

Four guys really came to hit. The other five? Ugh. How do you score two runs with that many  base runners?

When you manage to get Buxton into a double play (with second fastest runner behind him at the plate), that should tell you how this team hits. Following the hitting pattern, the batter would no doubt put a shallow popup or K if the runner was in the scoring position. We lose to teams playing good solid, fundamental baseball (like Rockies did) and opponent pitcher ERA has no relevance with general ineptitude of our lineup. Ty France is turning into CJ Cron when he was with twins (bunch of lazy popups in RBI opportunities)

[alskntwnsfn]

Festa pitched well outside of 3 bad pitches (1 to Ohtani, and 2 to Smith). I liked to see the arm side change ups to RH batters, now throw it inside to LH batters! We hit more balls hard than they did, just didn't drop in. A few bad ball/strike calls. Their bullpen is pretty bad! 

[S Bart]

53 minutes ago, IndianaTwin said:

The Royals will be his 14th team. The article says it's his 23rd season, but he debuted in 2005, so this is his 21st season. 

Looking at his baseball-reference page is pretty fascinating. He's played 20 years, but only had a bWAR above 1.6 on three occasions. He's been a starter the vast majority of the time, but only 90 career wins, primarily because he's been healthy enough to start more than 16 games in only nine of those seasons. Six of the seven seasons in which he started at least 20 games came at age 36 and later.

He's had some seasons when he's been the ultimate LOOGY, including one year when he pitched in 16 games and totaled 16 outs (5.1 innings). That year, in 4 of his 16 games, he didn't get a single out, including a day when he pitched in both ends of a double header. In Game 1, he gave up a hit and two walks to his three batters and in Game 2, he walked his only batter on five pitches, one of which was wild. That was his only day with the Angels. They dropped him and the Yankees picked him up, where he managed to plunk the only batter he faced in his first outing with the team. In 16 games, he faced 29 batters. In eight of the games, it was just one batter. 

His transaction record says he was "Granted free agency" on 14 different occasions. In his first 10 seasons, he had a combined bWAR of 3.7 and he still got 10 more seasons after that.

Oh, to be left-handed and 

....be 45 be asked to start a game at this level..

[tony&rodney]

10 minutes ago, MMMordabito said:

Implement the ABS Challenge system yesterday.

The umpire was a little shaky last night but it was pretty equal. The call that hurt was the check swing not called a swing (he went). Smith hit a home run on the next pitch.

The ABS challenge system flaws would have definitely been exposed last night. Both teams would have won a number of challenges to the point the umpire was getting embarrassed and a little pissed off. Eventually, one or both teams run out of challenges and now the bad calls are made in the critical late innings with no recourse. 

Manfred likes the drama of challenges shown on the big screens in the stadium. It is b.s. thinking which is all Manfred is capable of. 

There are two easy fixes. If the ABS is accurate, use it on every pitch. It is easy, the results are immediate which saves time, and everyone gets the results they desire. If people want the umpires calling balls and strikes, fine tune the monetary rewards for excellence behind the plate while retraining or demoting those umpires who cannot meet a high standard. The umpire last night would be called for retraining and be demoted if his subsequent games had similarly poor results. With high pay and financial rewards umpiring excellence would become really good. I think we already see very good umpire performances on most days.

The challenge system is a very, very poor choice. And yet, because it sucks and because Manfred needs people to know his name, I think the worst choice is what MLB will adopt. (As an aside, did you all read about the suggestion for home run derby to decide games after the 10th inning. I am going to suggest a race from home base to home base around the bases or a throwing contest to see who can throw the ball the furthest to decide the games. Of maybe a game of hacky sack to go for the W.)

[D.C Twins]

1 hour ago, chpettit19 said:

Fangraphs has them at 15.2% so you'd obviously choose that number instead. And make up your own internal number that'd put you closer to 50/50 because you know when Lopez, Ober, and Keaschall are coming back and that's going to boost your odds. Super easy to ignore that number and look at others.

(This is sarcasm and not an endorsement of the Twins pretending like they're a contender this year. But also not really a joke because they absolutely have their own internal numbers.)

"Lies, damned lies, and statistics"

Sell Baby Sell!

[D.C Twins]

Festa had 75% of the hits of him go for HR (3/4)!

[joefish]

1 hour ago, MMMordabito said:

Implement the ABS Challenge system yesterday.

Ump had a bad game behind the plate. 

Too many LOB 

But it was a fun game I thought

A level up in intensity. 

Bader is "off" at the plate. He doesnt look right. 

I hate losing, but we didn't quite deserve to win. 

We don't make their pitchers pay for their mistakes like they do ours.

[joefish]

1 hour ago, TwinsDr2021 said:

I am interested, which ocean? 🤣

Take your pick! And rename it if you want.

[Peter]

Let’s hope for win tonight!!! Hate the late night west coast game times!!! 

[MMMordabito]

1 hour ago, S Bart said:

....be 45 be asked to start a game at this level..

He only has 13 more years to catch Satchel Paige.

[MMMordabito]

2 minutes ago, Peter said:

Let’s hope for win tonight!!! Hate the late night west coast game times!!! 

[P Meyer]

4 hours ago, shimrod said:

Twins youth does mean losses. As you note, development is critical and Twins have failed at it.

This is becoming tougher to argue against. The biggest debate is where the failings are occurring.

[Western SD Fan]

3 hours ago, IndianaTwin said:

Oh, to be left-handed and breathing. 

The Jamie Moyer Effect to the extreme.  But Rich Hill still has 4 years to go so I can rename this The Rich Hill Effect.