Yankees 10, Twins 5: Bombers Finally Manage to Run Away from Tired Twins

[Sherry Cerny]

Image courtesy of © Nick Wosika-Imagn Images

Box Score
SP: Taj Bradley 4 IP, 8 H, 7 ER, 3 BB, 4 K (89 pitches, 54 strikes (61%))
Home Runs: None
Bottom 3 WPA: Bradley (-.481), Trevor Larnach (-.224), Edouard Julien (-.120)
Win Probability Chart (via FanGraphs)

Taj Bradley is no stranger to the Yankees. He's spent the bulk of his career in the AL East. Still, the Bronx Bombers are always a slightly intimidating opponent. Bradley took the mound in Wednesday's rubber match, hoping to help the Twins claim an unlikely series victory—but it quickly became clear that it wouldn't be that kind of night. In the top of the first, with Aaron Judge on first base, Cody Bellinger stroked a double to left field. Austin Martin fielded the ball and threw it home to catcher Jhonny Pereda, but Pereda missed it and Judge scored.  

In the first inning, there was no production at the plate for the Twins, but there were certainly things to talk about. Byron Buxton got his 500th plate appearance in a season for the second time in his career, and Martin got a hit for his sixth game in a row. The Twins' lineup has looked livelier of late, to be sure.

The home side's bats came alive in the second inning. A leadoff walk by Matt Wallner turned into an extra base when Luis Gil’s pickoff attempt sailed wide, moving Wallner to second. Brooks Lee followed with a single to push him to third, and Royce Lewis delivered another single to bring Wallner home and tie the game, 1-1.

Edouard Julien then hit into a force out, with Lewis cut down at second. But the Twins weren’t done. Lee scored on a two-out wild pitch from Gil, giving Minnesota a 2-1 lead before a Pereda strikeout ended the inning.

The Yankees, alas, responded quickly. In the top of the third, Trent Grisham jumped on a splitter from Bradley and drove it well out of the park to even things again. Bradley’s bigger battle, however, wasn’t with the hitters—it was with home plate umpire John Libka, whose strike zone seemed to shrink at just the wrong moments. Even so, Bradley managed to escape trouble, when Bellinger flied out to Martin on a great, far-ranging play near the left-field line.

Bradley ran into trouble again in the fourth inning, giving up a string of runs to the Yankees. Back-to-back doubles from Paul Goldschmidt and Jasson Dominguez put New York back on top, 3-2, with just one out. In an ill-timed lapse, Bradley walked José Caballero, bringing up Grisham for a third at-bat in the game and with two runners on.

Grisham won the battle, launching his second home run of the night—a three-run shot that cleared the bases and left Bradley reeling. Two more Yankees reached base, and the Twins bullpen began stirring as Bradley continued to falter. He then balked during Bellinger’s at-bat, allowing another run to score. Bradley finally escaped by striking out Bellinger, but the damage was done. The Yankees led 7-2.

Travis Adams took over for Bradley in the fifth and delivered exactly what the Twins needed—a clean inning, keeping the deficit in check and giving the offense a chance to climb back.

In the bottom half, Buxton and Trevor Larnach reached base. Luke Keaschall stepped to the plate with two outs. The Twins have thrived on two-out rallies lately, and Keaschall came through again, singling to center and trimming the Yankees’ lead to 7-3 as Buxton raced home.

The Twins brought in right fielder James Outman to replace Matt Wallner in the lineup (due, we later learned, to back spams for Wallner). Outman drew a walk to load the bases. On the very next pitch, Brooks Lee lined a sharp single, scoring both Larnach and Keaschall to bring the Twins within two, 7–5. That knock forced the Yankees to turn to their bullpen.

Pierson Ohl took the mound in the sixth and worked a clean inning to keep the Twins within striking distance. The Twins went down scoreless in the bottom half, sending the game to the seventh with New York still ahead 7–5.

Kody Funderburk entered in the seventh and continued his strong September, tossing another clean frame to hold the deficit at two. For the month, Funderburk has allowed just four hits and two runs, posting a 3.00 ERA.

Cole Sands took over in the eighth to face the bottom of the Yankees order. Unfortunately, he plunked Dominguez, who then stole second and scored on a single by Ryan McMahon.

In the bottom half, Brooks Lee led off with a single, marking the second straight inning the Twins put the leadoff man aboard. This time, they faced reliever Luke Weaver, who had been roughed up by the Twins earlier in the series. Weaver got lucky after Lee, though, as the next two batters’ hits lost steam at the warning track. He struck out Kody Clemens to avert trouble. 

Génesis Cabrera gave up a two-run homer to Bellinger in the top of the ninth, widening New York's lead. The Twins had no further answer.

What’s Next? 
The Twins have a day off before facing the Guardians over the weekend; their visitors are engaged in a last-second and somewhat desperate (but not hopeless) push for the playoffs. Pablo López (5-4; 2.64 ERA)  will be back on the mound, opposite Parker Messick (3-0; 1.84 ERA) at 7:10 PM CST.  

Postgame Interviews

Bullpen Usage Spreadsheet

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[IndianaTwin]

Of bigger note for Buxton than reaching 500 plate appearances is reaching 502, which earns him a $500k bonus. Finishing the game with 504, he needs just 29 more to have the next $500k kick in at 533. 

[Aggies7]

If you’d have told me we’d score 21 runs and the bullpen would only give up two runs, I’d have thought we’d win the series. Would have been nice to split the season series.

[thelanges5]

Gleeman:

Twins are now 46-127 (.266) vs. the Yankees since 2002, including the playoffs.

They've won 1 season series in 23 years.

All three Twins managers since 2002 have a winning percentage below .270 vs. the Yankees.

.269 — Ron Gardenhire
.262 — Rocco Baldelli
.259 — Paul Molitor

[Aggies7]

2 minutes ago, thelanges5 said:

Gleeman:

Twins are now 46-127 (.266) vs. the Yankees since 2002, including the playoffs.

They've won 1 season series in 23 years.

All three Twins managers since 2002 have a winning percentage below .270 vs. the Yankees.

.269 — Ron Gardenhire
.262 — Rocco Baldelli
.259 — Paul Molitor

Honestly, the twins played them tough except for the one blowout. I am not super impressed with NY. Lots of hitting potential, but the pitching staff is mediocre. I’d be surprised to see them in the WS again. 

[Permanent Twins Fan]

Great article title. The Twins showed some fight in this series, but it is hard to expect this Twins team to take a series against the Yankees especially with the starting pitchers who started. Nice to see Royce and Brooks have good games along with a great performance from the bullpen. Also Keaschall is riding a 6 game hit streak and has gotten a hit in 14 of his last 15 games.

[USAFChief]

4 minutes ago, thelanges5 said:

Gleeman:

Twins are now 46-127 (.266) vs. the Yankees since 2002, including the playoffs.

They've won 1 season series in 23 years.

All three Twins managers since 2002 have a winning percentage below .270 vs. the Yankees.

.269 — Ron Gardenhire
.262 — Rocco Baldelli
.259 — Paul Molitor

This is truly pathetic. 

[Dave Borton]

24 minutes ago, Aggies7 said:

Honestly, the twins played them tough except for the one blowout. I am not super impressed with NY. Lots of hitting potential, but the pitching staff is mediocre. I’d be surprised to see them in the WS again. 

I listen to a lot of Yanks games. Porous defense, inconsistent pitching/defense.

ERA, 17th place.
Hitting, 13th place.
Slugging, 1st place. 
Fielding, 24th place.

Post-season and WS will be who is hot and which team has the best arms on the mound. Yanks exit 1st round,.
 

[ashbury]

Puaf
Ughh
Puhh
Blehhh
Huuh
Ogh
Ackkk
Eugh
Ugh
Blergh
Uhh
Tchh
Pahh
Ewww
Beurkk
Kchhh
Fy
Pfah
Ack
Ptuui
Ock
Echhh
Meh
Ew
Ishh
Bähh
Blehh
Arghh
Unh
Bleurgh
Yuck
Icky
Erk
Chehh
Ech
Guácala
Mehh
Tfuu
Ackk
Urghhh
Blahh
Bleughh
Pfft
Ughhh
Uof
Erkk
Ockk
Bleugh
Bahh
Argh
Egh
Beurk
Ptuuii
Ish
Bäh
Tch
Fehhh
Eghh
Puajh
Bah
Blech
Urghh
Blah
Uof
Ew
Cheh
Kchh
Pah
Oghh
Feh
Blahhh
Fyhh
Yucky
Pouah
Ugh
Blechh
Puf
Unhh
Bleh
Hmph
Pfui
Ew
Arghhh
Puaj
Pouahh
Bähh
Ockk
Pffft
Eughh
Ock
Urgh
Puajj
Gahh
Echh
Ack
Ighh
Hu
Pfahh
Gah
Bleurk
Igh
Tfui
Hmmph

[terrydactyls]

P	Team	W	L	PCT	GB
1	Chicago White Sox	57	96	0.373	-
2	Pittsburgh Pirates	65	88	0.425	8.0
3	Minnesota Twins	66	86	0.434	9.5
4	Los Angeles Angels	69	83	0.454	12.5
5	Atlanta Braves	70	83	0.458	13.0
6	Whatever Athletics	71	81	0.467	14.5
7	Miami Marlins	72	80	0.474	15.5
8	Baltimore Orioles	72	80	0.474	15.5
9	St. Louis Cardinals	74	79	0.484	17.0
10	Tampa Bay Rays	74	78	0.487	17.5
11	San Francisco Giants	76	76	0.500	19.5
12	Arizona Diamondbacks	77	76	0.503	20.0

[glunn]

1 hour ago, thelanges5 said:

Gleeman:

Twins are now 46-127 (.266) vs. the Yankees since 2002, including the playoffs.

They've won 1 season series in 23 years.

All three Twins managers since 2002 have a winning percentage below .270 vs. the Yankees.

.269 — Ron Gardenhire
.262 — Rocco Baldelli
.259 — Paul Molitor

I believe that the key constant in that equation is that the team has had the same owners during this period.

[glunn]

23 minutes ago, ashbury said:

Puaf
Ughh
Puhh
Blehhh
Huuh
Ogh
Ackkk
Eugh
Ugh
Blergh
Uhh
Tchh
Pahh
Ewww
Beurkk
Kchhh
Fy
Pfah
Ack
Ptuui
Ock
Echhh
Meh
Ew
Ishh
Bähh
Blehh
Arghh
Unh
Bleurgh
Yuck
Icky
Erk
Chehh
Ech
Guácala
Mehh
Tfuu
Ackk
Urghhh
Blahh
Bleughh
Pfft
Ughhh
Uof
Erkk
Ockk
Bleugh
Bahh
Argh
Egh
Beurk
Ptuuii
Ish
Bäh
Tch
Fehhh
Eghh
Puajh
Bah
Blech
Urghh
Blah
Uof
Ew
Cheh
Kchh
Pah
Oghh
Feh
Blahhh
Fyhh
Yucky
Pouah
Ugh
Blechh
Puf
Unhh
Bleh
Hmph
Pfui
Ew
Arghhh
Puaj
Pouahh
Bähh
Ockk
Pffft
Eughh
Ock
Urgh
Puajj
Gahh
Echh
Ack
Ighh
Hu
Pfahh
Gah
Bleurk
Igh
Tfui
Hmmph

"Ock"?

[glunn]

14 minutes ago, terrydactyls said:

P	Team	W	L	PCT	GB
1	Chicago White Sox	57	96	0.373	-
2	Pittsburgh Pirates	65	88	0.425	8.0
3	Minnesota Twins	66	86	0.434	9.5
4	Los Angeles Angels	69	83	0.454	12.5
5	Atlanta Braves	70	83	0.458	13.0
6	Whatever Athletics	71	81	0.467	14.5
7	Miami Marlins	72	80	0.474	15.5
8	Baltimore Orioles	72	80	0.474	15.5
9	St. Louis Cardinals	74	79	0.484	17.0
10	Tampa Bay Rays	74	78	0.487	17.5
11	San Francisco Giants	76	76	0.500	19.5
12	Arizona Diamondbacks	77	76	0.503	20.0

Rumor has it that the Pirates have offered to exchange managers with the Twins in order to "win" the better odds for a top pick.

[knothole61]

1 hour ago, thelanges5 said:

1 hour ago, thelanges5 said:

1 hour ago, thelanges5 said:

Gleeman:

Twins are now 46-127 (.266) vs. the Yankees since 2002, including the playoffs.

They've won 1 season series in 23 years.

All three Twins managers since 2002 have a winning percentage below .270 vs. the Yankees.

.269 — Ron Gardenhire
.262 — Rocco Baldelli
.259 — Paul Molitor

 

The Twins have won 1 season series from the Yankees in 23 years...did I read that right?

[Dave Borton]

2 hours ago, glunn said:

"Ock"?

He means, "ach," or I do.

Some German used at home when I was a kid. "Ach," (pronounced 'aack') I screwed up that test.

[Doctor Wu]

7 hours ago, Permanent Twins Fan said:

Nice to see Royce and Brooks have good games along with a great performance from the bullpen. Also Keaschall is riding a 6 game hit streak and has gotten a hit in 14 of his last 15 games.

Yeah, it was nice to see a few positive developments in that game. Tiny steps. 

[Doctor Gast]

7 hours ago, Aggies7 said:

Honestly, the twins played them tough except for the one blowout. I am not super impressed with NY. Lots of hitting potential, but the pitching staff is mediocre. I’d be surprised to see them in the WS again. 

I agree. NYY don't look that good. I stated in the game thread that if Falvey & Co. were serious about beating the NYY, they'd pitch their 3 top SP instead of the bottom 3. (You can debate me & say Ober isn't in the top 3, & I'd agree with you & right now SWR is pitching better.  But as far as the Twins' pecking order, Ober is #3). If Lopez & Ryan were used, the Twins could have swept the NYY. I'd have been very happy if MN had been the spoiler against our nemesis. IMO, Falvey & Co. do not share the same sentiment as many serious fans. They'd rather roll over & play dead, "oh, well, we can't win, so why try?" Falvey & Co. admire the NYY too much, SWR defied that & shut out the NYY, don't you think that  Lopez & Ryan could have shut out the NYY? NYY aren't that great. Their BP is horrid. Maybe MN couldn't knock NYY out of the postseason, but I'd like for them to try. I'd have liked them to make this our pretend playoff game. & at least knock them down a peg or two. The players gave a pretty good effort; I'd like the same from management.

[TwinsDr2021]

 If we just take away a few bad pitches or innings from Bradley and Matthews they look like top of the rotation type starters for the Twins. That is how we are supposed to describe Twins players correct? 

[rv78]

44 minutes ago, Doctor Gast said:

I agree. NYY don't look that good. I stated in the game thread that if Falvey & Co. were serious about beating the NYY, they'd pitch their 3 top SP instead of the bottom 3. (You can debate me & say Ober isn't in the top 3, & I'd agree with you & right now SWR is pitching better.  But as far as the Twins' pecking order, Ober is #3). If Lopez & Ryan were used, the Twins could have swept the NYY. I'd have been very happy if MN had been the spoiler against our nemesis. IMO, Falvey & Co. do not share the same sentiment as many serious fans. They'd rather roll over & play dead, "oh, well, we can't win, so why try?" Falvey & Co. admire the NYY too much, SWR defied that & shut out the NYY, don't you think that  Lopez & Ryan could have shut out the NYY? NYY aren't that great. Their BP is horrid. Maybe MN couldn't knock NYY out of the postseason, but I'd like for them to try. I'd have liked them to make this our pretend playoff game. & at least knock them down a peg or two. The players gave a pretty good effort; I'd like the same from management.

They don't care. My guess is that they don't even know that the Twins have only 1 season series win against NYY in the last 23 years. Why try now with a AAAA team?

[mikelink45]

7 minutes ago, TwinsDr2021 said:

 If we just take away a few bad pitches or innings from Bradley and Matthews they look like top of the rotation type starters for the Twins. That is how we are supposed to describe Twins players correct? 

Actually, if we removed all the innings that the other team scored this year, our pitching would look amazing.

[mikelink45]

Two BP notes - Sands has not been the veteran BP piece we need.  He has given up too many runs too often and I am disappointed since we are going to really count on him next year.  Cabrera amazes me - why have we kept him.  His outings and era are awful.  Why not check out another young arm like they are doing with Ohl and Adams?

[Western SD Fan]

It's too easy to pile on the poor things such as the pitching.  I'm going to try to go positive and say that the offense has perked up over this series.  They also showed some fight to try to get back in the games.  Now we just need the pitching staff to not throw bullpen sessions 2 of every 3 games.

[Rod Carews Birthday]

3 hours ago, Doctor Gast said:

I agree. NYY don't look that good. I stated in the game thread that if Falvey & Co. were serious about beating the NYY, they'd pitch their 3 top SP instead of the bottom 3. (You can debate me & say Ober isn't in the top 3, & I'd agree with you & right now SWR is pitching better.  But as far as the Twins' pecking order, Ober is #3). If Lopez & Ryan were used, the Twins could have swept the NYY. I'd have been very happy if MN had been the spoiler against our nemesis. IMO, Falvey & Co. do not share the same sentiment as many serious fans. They'd rather roll over & play dead, "oh, well, we can't win, so why try?" Falvey & Co. admire the NYY too much, SWR defied that & shut out the NYY, don't you think that  Lopez & Ryan could have shut out the NYY? NYY aren't that great. Their BP is horrid. Maybe MN couldn't knock NYY out of the postseason, but I'd like for them to try. I'd have liked them to make this our pretend playoff game. & at least knock them down a peg or two. The players gave a pretty good effort; I'd like the same from management.

If the calendar had worked that way it would have been nice, but last I checked, the starting pitchers are on a rotation and I can't imagine this situation being important enough to upset the starting pitchers' regular routines.  You can complain about "Falvey & Co" all you want, but blaming them for how the rotation hits the calendar seems a little over the top.  

[Doctor Gast]

2 hours ago, rv78 said:

They don't care. My guess is that they don't even know that the Twins have only 1 season series win against NYY in the last 23 years. Why try now with a AAAA team?

Twins have won only 1 series in the last 23 years. They don't care; that's the problem. This AAAA team outscored the NYY 21 to 20, If they had cared, this AAAA team could have swept NYY. That is my point. They could look back & have one thing they could be proud of. 

[Blyleven2011]

11 hours ago, Dave Borton said:

I listen to a lot of Yanks games. Porous defense, inconsistent pitching/defense.

ERA, 17th place.
Hitting, 13th place.
Slugging, 1st place. 
Fielding, 24th place.

Post-season and WS will be who is hot and which team has the best arms on the mound. Yanks exit 1st round,.
 

I'm sure your sister in law isn't thinking that way  , sure hope your right on the first round exit so you can rub it in ...

Twins did put up a good fight against the Yankees  , I sure hope that fight continues with Cleveland and they don't revert back to hitting just 3 hits a game ...

[rdehring]

What surprised me the last two nights was how long Rocco stayed with Zebby and Taj.  Don't recall him letting pitchers stay in games through several big innings.  Announcers kept saying he was allowing them to battle thru and learn from it.  Was that it?  And does that make sense?

Cannot tell you how pleasantly surprised I have been with Martin's play the last few weeks.  Both his bat and defense have improved to the point that you look forward to him being in one of the top two lineup spots.  Expect he will get better defensively if the Twins let him stay in the outfield and concentrate on left and center fields.  Looking at his stats in this morning's paper I noticed that he has had 9 (of 12) stolen bases in 147 plate appearances.  Take that out to a full year of say 500+ plate appearances, he would steal over 30 bags.  We always thought he should be able to steal a lot of bases.  Is good seeing that happen.  Now if he can only eliminate most of his base running mistakes, he will be a huge asset for the Twins come 2026.

[Doctor Gast]

46 minutes ago, Rod Carews Birthday said:

If the calendar had worked that way it would have been nice, but last I checked, the starting pitchers are on a rotation and I can't imagine this situation being important enough to upset the starting pitchers' regular routines.  You can complain about "Falvey & Co" all you want, but blaming them for how the rotation hits the calendar seems a little over the top.  

You are right, it's good to try to keep your SP on a regular schedule, but teams often finagle the calendar to get a certain setup they want. Twins could have finagled the calendar with the bottom 3 SPs so as to yield to the Yanks as those games lost.  They could have held back Lopez a couple of days. Ryan would probably like a chance to beat the NYY, It'd look good for him. W/o a doubt, I deem this series much more important than they do. That is my point. The only thing I was looking forward to the whole season was beating the Yanks because I knew we weren't going to the postseason. Maybe I wanted to win this series too much.

[Blyleven2011]

12 hours ago, USAFChief said:

This is truly pathetic. 

It is what it is because it is who the twins are because of the owners and management are pathetic  , pitiful  , putrid  , piss poor at lack of baseball sense  ...

[RpR]

13 hours ago, glunn said:

I believe that the key constant in that equation is that the team has had the same owners during this period.

Gardenhire had good teams , NO excuse for his failure.

[USAFChief]

6 hours ago, Doctor Gast said:

I agree. NYY don't look that good. I stated in the game thread that if Falvey & Co. were serious about beating the NYY, they'd pitch their 3 top SP instead of the bottom 3. (You can debate me & say Ober isn't in the top 3, & I'd agree with you & right now SWR is pitching better.  But as far as the Twins' pecking order, Ober is #3). If Lopez & Ryan were used, the Twins could have swept the NYY. I'd have been very happy if MN had been the spoiler against our nemesis. IMO, Falvey & Co. do not share the same sentiment as many serious fans. They'd rather roll over & play dead, "oh, well, we can't win, so why try?" Falvey & Co. admire the NYY too much, SWR defied that & shut out the NYY, don't you think that  Lopez & Ryan could have shut out the NYY? NYY aren't that great. Their BP is horrid. Maybe MN couldn't knock NYY out of the postseason, but I'd like for them to try. I'd have liked them to make this our pretend playoff game. & at least knock them down a peg or two. The players gave a pretty good effort; I'd like the same from management.

They also should have saved, say, 5 runs from Monday and used 2 of them Tuesday and 3 Thursday. Sweep!

Stupid Twins