Twins 9, Orioles 5: Dean Kremer Dominates Former Team as Twins Roll Past Orioles

[Matthew Taylor]

Image courtesy of Bruce Kluckhohn-Imagn Images

Box Score
SP: Dean Kremer 7 IP, 1 H, 1 ER, 7 K, 1 BB
HR: Martin (3), Bell (16)
Top 3 WPA: Kremer 0.34, Martin 0.22, Lee 0.16
Win Probability Chart (via FanGraphs):

The Minnesota Twins needed a jolt after losing six of their last eight games, including a series loss to the Milwaukee Brewers over the weekend. They got one Monday night from an unlikely source, as Austin Martin provided an early spark and Dean Kremer delivered arguably the best start of his career against his former team.

Martin gave the Twins an early lead in the third inning when he launched a solo home run to left-center field. It was Martin's third home run of the season and his first since May 22nd, providing a much-needed big hit from a player who has struggled mightily since his hot start with the Twins this spring.

The home run gave the Twins a 1-0 lead, but Kremer quickly became the biggest story of the night.

Facing the Baltimore Orioles for the first time since being acquired by the Twins at the trade deadline, Kremer looked like a pitcher who had something to prove against his former club. He had virtually everything working, generating 14 swings and misses while allowing just one hit, an infield single. He walked one batter and struck out seven while working seven innings.

Perhaps just as importantly, Kremer gave the Twins length at a time when their bullpen desperately needed it. Minnesota has leaned heavily on its relievers during a stretch filled with close, one-run games, so getting seven innings from Kremer was a major development.

The only run Kremer allowed came in an unusual sequence in the fourth inning. He struck out the batter, but the Orioles were able to turn it into a strike-em-out, throw-em-out double play that allowed Gunnar Henderson to score from third on the throw down to second, tying the game at 1-1.

Outside of that "play", Kremer was essentially untouchable.

The Twins quickly gave him the lead back in the bottom of the fourth. Rookie Kaelen Culpepper came through with a sacrifice fly to score Luke Keaschall, putting Minnesota back in front 2-1.

For the next few innings, the game remained within striking distance for Baltimore. Then the Twins offense finally broke things open in the seventh.

Minnesota put together a five-run inning that started with an RBI single from Ryan Jeffers. Josh Bell followed with the biggest swing of the night, launching a towering three-run home run that left his bat at 106 MPH. It was Bell's 16th home run of the season (third in the past week) and gave the Twins a commanding 7-1 advantage.

The Twins added two more runs in the eighth inning. Jeffers came through again with an RBI double before Royce Lewis followed with an RBI single, pushing Minnesota's lead to 9-1.

The offensive outburst was exactly what the Twins needed after struggling to consistently put runs on the board during their recent skid. The nine runs were the most Minnesota had scored since July 26th, and the Twins collected 14 hits while recording five extra-base hits, including two home runs.

Baltimore did manage to get a couple of runs off Travis Adams in the eighth inning and Taylor Rogers in the ninth, but by that point, the Twins had already put the game out of reach, and the Twins came away with a 9-5 victory.

The win gives the Twins a needed victory to open the series and improves their position in the American League Wild Card race. Minnesota now sits just one game out of the final Wild Card spot with plenty of baseball still to be played.

More importantly, the Twins finally got the kind of complete performance they have been searching for. Martin provided an early spark, the offense eventually broke through in a big way, and Kremer delivered seven dominant innings against his former club.

After dropping six of their previous eight games, the Twins will have an opportunity to build some momentum when they return to the field Tuesday night.

What's Next

The Twins will look to take the series against the Orioles on Tuesday at 6:40 p.m. Bailey Ober will take the mound for Minnesota, facing Orioles right-hander Brandon Young.

Postgame Interviews

Bullpen Usage Chart

	THU	FRI	SAT	SUN	MON	TOT
Funderburk	20	0	21	15	0	56
Hoffman	0	25	15	0	0	40
Morris	13	13	0	14	0	40
Gomez	18	12	0	9	0	39
Adams	0	0	15	0	21	36
Nance	0	24	0	11	0	35
Rogers	0	0	0	0	30	30
Minter	0	3	0	16	0	19

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[Parfigliano]

Martin's offensive outburst raised his OPS from .657 to .687.

[Dman]

I'm not quite ready to eat crow on Dean Kremer, but he has impressed me these last two starts.  Looks like I am going to be wrong about him.  He's been the most dominant pitcher on the team since the deadline.  Hope he can keep it up.

[Nashvilletwin]

Good for Martin.  He’s played hard all season and was a huge factor helping to carry this team in April.  He’s very much underrated by the fan base.  He needed the bounce back after a rough day Sunday.

He has those piranha type qualities very much valued by teams like the Twins.

 

[soyouresayingtheresachance]

Very nice start from Kremer. 

Martin with the 🔥 bat tonight. Wow. Havent seen that in a long time. 

Won't happen, but I'd like to see Adams sent back down and replaced with Anderson. He been too inconsistent. While we dont know how good Anderson is, he performed much better than Adams. 

Also Rogers can get released and bring Rojas back up. Rogers isn't part of the future and has also been quite inconsistent. Give more ML experience to someone that will still be here next season. 

[howeda7]

Nice win. Would be nice to see them shore up some roster spots. Get Jenkins up here for Jackson. And Rogers is cooked and I've seen enough of Adams. Get Rojas and Raya up instead. 

[Sampson5]

Twins need to either stretch rojas out to a starter or if not then dfa rogers and get Rojas in the pen as that last lefty . Id say raya to but the numbers lately aren't the best for him since that il stint so he may not be fully ready yet . Point is it's time to swap out Adams & rogers didn't matter tonight but neither is very effective lately . Shoutout to Kramer & the offense for building a lead they couldn't blow gonna need another big offense performance tomorrow with ober on the mound although top pen arms will be rested in case ober can't give them more then 5 innings of good ball 

[Peter]

Huge much needed win!!!

[MMMordabito]

Culpepper got his sombrero fitting out of the way.

[DJL44]

Teams don’t need three lefties in the bullpen. Rogers can be replaced with a RHP.

[DJL44]

120 games in the books, season is 75% over

[DJL44]

Culpepper batting .111 with 5K in 13 PA.

[David HK]

Woof woof woof. It is long past time to give Mr. Rogers his gold watch, and Mr. Adams his ticket to the Capital City. 

Good grief, what an insult to the masterful job Dean Kremer did. 7-1 to nail bighting, having to get the competent pitchers heated up multiple times in what should have been a laugher is far less than optimal. We've got the troops now, time to bite this bullet. 

[David HK]

56 minutes ago, MMMordabito said:

Culpepper got his sombrero fitting out of the way.

In part thanks to Mr Keashall's ego.

[90stwinskid]

Post-deadline: 3-4

Overall: 59-61

Good on Martin and Kremer. Go Twins.

[Hawkeye Bean Counter]

6 hours ago, howeda7 said:

Nice win. Would be nice to see them shore up some roster spots. Get Jenkins up here for Jackson. And Rogers is cooked and I've seen enough of Adams. Get Rojas and Raya up instead. 

Replacing Jenkins with your 13th roster spot and minimal opportunities doesn’t sound ideal. Bringing up the rookies doesn’t mean improved performance. Culpepper has shown the jump is tough. 

[mickster]

52 minutes ago, DJL44 said:

Culpepper batting .111 with 5K in 13 PA.

This should not shock anyone, and a reason that Jenkins and others won't be recalled unless an injury requires it.

[jmlease1]

Can't ask for much more than we've gotten from Kremer so far. Nice to see the trade deadline guys generally playing well and showing why they were acquired.

Pretty good offensive showing. Could have had even more runs early, but nice to exit the LH starter early by clogging up the bases with runners.

Would have liked to see Adams pitch better with such a big lead and Rogers could have been better as well, but these guys are probably now in the bottom 3 of the bullpen which is a much better position to be in. (Baltimore can't be happy with Garcia or Wolfram last night; the former faced 4 guys and retired none of them, and Wolfram immediately surrendered a 3-run dinger. ouch.)

Interesting to see former Twins prospect CES get in a game; he was the prospect I thought we might really regret losing, but so far he really hasn't done much (injuries have been a problem too). Mahle might have busted out for us because of injury, but the "big prospect haul" we gave up was more suspects than prospects (Hajjar out of baseball, CES got sold for cash, and after a nice rookie season Steer has turned into a utility player who probably won't be offered arbitration...)

[MinnInPa]

7 hours ago, howeda7 said:

Nice win. Would be nice to see them shore up some roster spots. Get Jenkins up here for Jackson. And Rogers is cooked and I've seen enough of Adams. Get Rojas and Raya up instead. 

never Raya..very over hyped prospect

[Parfigliano]

1 hour ago, DJL44 said:

Teams don’t need three lefties in the bullpen. Rogers can be replaced with a RHP.

LHP....RHP....Rogers just needs to be replaced.

[Andy MacPhail]

Martin played a very big role in tonight's victory; He hit that big HR to start the game & kept on hitting to keep fueling the rallies. He was shy a 3 bagger for the cycle. OBP & baserunning is more important than most people give credit. His job is getting on base & scoring runs. OPS is important for those who drive in runs.

For me, Kremer was the pivoting point on how well the deadline went. IMO, Zoll did well, far better than this recent long drought, Now, let's go on a long tear, for the division.

[mikelink45]

Enough with Kriedler in CF - bring up Jenkins - have a real OF 

I agree with all the comments on Rogers and Adams 5.4 and 5.8 Eras should not be kept when there are options in the minors. 

 

[Saxophone Joe]

A beautiful night at the ballpark, minus a way too stressful ninth (the eighth was no picnic either). It should've been, but the game did not feel "out of reach" with the tying run on deck in the ninth. Yikes, Rogers! Gotta imagine the FO is wondering what to do with him. 

Austin Martin shut all of us up, didn't he? 

[HarmonK03]

It is time to bring up Jenkins for Jackson.  This doesn't mean he fills the 13th man role on the bench, instead it pushes everyone down a spot.  This also balances the roster better and allows Clemens and Kreidler to stay in the infield where they are more effective.

Even when Buxton comes back there are plenty AB's to go around between Buxton, Jenkins, Larnach and Keaschall.  And you can give Bell a couple of days a week off and someone can DH.  It takes some creativity but teams do this all the time.  This also strengthens the bench.  But they have to get past worrying which side of the plate the batter stands on in most situations.  It works for Larnach and Martin but it doesn't have to be that way for everyone.  This would also eliminate the need to keep trying to fit Caratini into the lineup at 1B.

Yes Jenkins may struggle but he will also be learning which is beneficial and he will also make some plays, similar to Lara for Milwaukee last week.  It would be great to see an athletic outfield of Jenkins, Buxton and Keaschall and watch them run the ball down.  You are not replacing anyone who has performed at a high level.  

[David HK]

9 hours ago, soyouresayingtheresachance said:

Very nice start from Kremer. 

Martin with the 🔥 bat tonight. Wow. Havent seen that in a long time. 

Won't happen, but I'd like to see Adams sent back down and replaced with Anderson. He been too inconsistent. While we dont know how good Anderson is, he performed much better than Adams. 

Also Rogers can get released and bring Rojas back up. Rogers isn't part of the future and has also been quite inconsistent. Give more ML experience to someone that will still be here next season. 

I would argue that Mr Rogers has been consistent.

Consistently hittable.

[David HK]

2 hours ago, DJL44 said:

Teams don’t need three lefties in the bullpen. Rogers can be replaced with a RHP.

Or a tee. 😂

[terrydactyls]

The highlights of the game for me were watching Keascall and then Martin playing balls off the right field wall (Keaschall) and left field wall (Martin).  The leap by Keaschall was about ten feet short and looked very awkward.   Martin's effort was almost as comical as he completely miscalculated where the ball going to go and then made several attempts to corral the ball as it merrilly rolled its way back towards the infield.  Very amusing when the Twins are ahead 9-1.  But both efforts would have been horrendous in a one-run game.  (But they were funny.)

[USAFChief]

9 minutes ago, terrydactyls said:

The highlights of the game for me were watching Keascall and then Martin playing balls off the right field wall (Keaschall) and left field wall (Martin). 

 

[mickster]

46 minutes ago, HarmonK03 said:

It is time to bring up Jenkins for Jackson.  This doesn't mean he fills the 13th man role on the bench, instead it pushes everyone down a spot.  This also balances the roster better and allows Clemens and Kreidler to stay in the infield where they are more effective.

Even when Buxton comes back there are plenty AB's to go around between Buxton, Jenkins, Larnach and Keaschall.  And you can give Bell a couple of days a week off and someone can DH.  It takes some creativity but teams do this all the time.  This also strengthens the bench.  But they have to get past worrying which side of the plate the batter stands on in most situations.  It works for Larnach and Martin but it doesn't have to be that way for everyone.  This would also eliminate the need to keep trying to fit Caratini into the lineup at 1B.

Yes Jenkins may struggle but he will also be learning which is beneficial and he will also make some plays, similar to Lara for Milwaukee last week.  It would be great to see an athletic outfield of Jenkins, Buxton and Keaschall and watch them run the ball down.  You are not replacing anyone who has performed at a high level.  

Not until the 15th

[HarmonK03]

4 minutes ago, mickster said:

Not until the 15th

That's a date that I don't agree with, some potential reward for next year that may or may not happen should not be part of the decision making process.