Braves 8, Twins 6: Twins Rally to Tie It Late, But Jhoan Duran Hit Hard in 10-Inning Gut Punch

Box Score:
Starting Pitcher: Simeon Woods Richardson: 4 2/3 IP, 3 H, 4 ER, 3 BB, 3 K (91 Pitches, 55 Strikes, 60.4%)
Home Runs: None
Bottom 3 WPA: Jhoan Duran (-.472), Royce Lewis (-.223), Austin Martin (-.202)
Win Probability Chart (Via Fangraphs):

Things have been rickety in Twinsland lately. The past three games I have personally recapped have been the Jorge Alcala implosion in Texas, the swan song of Steven Okert's Twins career in San Diego, and the Eddy Julien 9th inning error leading to a loss at home to St. Louis. Last night, Bailey Ober went from being very likely to receive Cy Young votes to a guy with an ERA over 4.00. Nine earned runs will do that.

Now the Twins were tasked with facing a hot (and battle-tested) Braves team needing to win two in a row to take the series. Chris Sale looms in Wednesday's finale, so that would seem unlikely. But don't overlook Tuesday's starter, rookie Spencer Schwellenbach, who has been hot since the All-Star break and features premium raw stuff, hitting 98 MPH with his four seam fastball, and 95 MPH with his cutter (which is absurd compared to anyone except Emmanuel Clase).

Simeon Woods Richardson took the ball for the Twins, coming off a start against the Padres in which he showed a lot of moxie. Staked to a huge lead, SWR started pumping fastballs and nothing else to the Padres hitters, and taking about three seconds between pitches. He was dancing and strutting off the mound, but even the old heads couldn't say he was disrespecting the game- he threw strikes and came right at every hitter- and he gave the Twins exactly what they needed after dropping the first two of that series.

SWR looked good again tonight, at least stuff-wise. He located all three of his primary pitches and looked in control of what he was doing. After a quick first inning, he allowed the red-hot Matt Olson to lace an opposite field double on a decent enough slider. He fell behind Michael Harris II but rebounded to force a full count after six straight fastballs. He then threw a dotted slider, down and in on the black, and Harris dropped the bat head on it and lined it 424 feet.

I bring up the Will Harris cutter to Howie Kendrick in the 2019 World Series a lot, because it is instructive that a pitcher can throw the absolute best pitch he can possibly throw, and if a hitter guesses right, it just won't matter. In tonight's game, it meant a 2-0 deficit.

The Twins worked Schwellenbach hard, resulting in him throwing nearly 30 pitches in the first (he still struck out the side). They put runners on second and third in the second via a Carlos Santana single and Ryan Jeffers double, but Austin Martin struck out on a borderline pitch to end the threat. Matt Wallner doubled off the wall in the third, but Julien tapped out to end the frame.

In the fourth, Max Kepler reached on a swinging bunt, and Santana doubled to the right field corner. Kepler is a notoriously unaggressive baserunner, but he also has been nursing a knee injury- either way he didn't score, although he was animated in discussing with third base coach Tommy Watkins afterward. Jeffers then hit a liner that deflected off of Schwellenbach's glove, high in the air and landed... right in Whit Merrifield's glove. Martin then struck out to make the inning a total waste. The baseball gods just hate me in particular, I guess.

SWR's mettle was tested in the fifth. After Ramon Laureano singled, the lovely Gio Urshela flew out to right. Orlando Arcia had two painted pitches called for balls, and ended up drawing a walk, prompting SWR to start chirping a bit at the home plate umpire. He locked in on the next batter, Merrifield, who had five hits the night before. That was to SWR's detriment, as Laureano and Arcia executed a double steal. Merrifield did end up striking out, but Jorge Soler laid off some tough pitches and drew a walk, ending the night for the Twins rookie.

Jorge Alcala has excelled in the fireman role this year (not as much when given a clean inning), but Marcell Ozuna jumped on the first pitch he saw and roped a single to left, doubling the lead. It's okay to hate Marcell Ozuna.

The Twins got Schwellenbach up to 106 pitches, with two-out walks to Wallner and Julien ending his night. The slumping Royce Lewis jumped on the first pitch he saw from Dylan Lee, but was a hair out front and lined it foul. He ended up striking out on three pitches to end yet another threat.

Caleb Boushley made his return to the big leagues in the sixth and although Harris hit a ball so hard (114 MPH) off the right field wall he couldn't even reach second, Boushley gutted his way through two innings, allowing three hits.

41-year-old Jesse Chavez was called up on to pitch the sixth and seventh innings. After a Willi Castro bloop single, Trevor Larnach lined a double that skipped past the mercurial Jared Kelenic's glove and scored Castro. The ever predictable Wallner got a (cookie) cutter on 3-1 and smacked it 105 MPH off the right field wall to score Larnach. That prompted the Braves to take the game seriously and brought in former Tigers punching bag Joe Jimenez to stop the bleeding.

He wasn't successful, at least not at first. Julien worked the count to 2-2 before getting a slider from Jimenez to his liking and yanked it down the line past a diving Olson, scoring Wallner. The scuffling Lewis popped out, while Kepler and Santana followed by whiffing on sliders they knew were coming.

The first two batters for the Twins the next inning were retired quickly, but Willi Castro squared a ball up and doubled to right-center, bringing up Trevor Larnach to face a new pitcher, the Braves elite closer, Raisel Iglesias. Iglesias is a change-up artist, which would seem to be a bad matchup for Larnach, and perhaps got Rocco Baldelli considering pinch hitting Jose Miranda. He stuck with Larnach, and he delivered, blooping a change-up off the plate outside that landed in front of a diving Kelenic to tie the game.

After going quietly in the ninth, Ozuna greeted Jhoan Duran with a double to right-center that Kelenic misread (does this guy have any baseball instincts?) and only advanced to third on. Olson broke his bat and grounded to second, which Julien threw home on, not even coming close to nabbing Kelenic at the plate. It wouldn't matter, as Travis D'Arnaud rifled a ball up the middle to score pinch-runner Luke Williams from second, and Laureano doubled to score two more.

The Twins at least brought the tying run to the plate in their half of the 10th, with Miranda and Castro collecting hits to give Larnach a chance. He delivered an RBI hit for the third at-bat in a row, this time against Pierce Johnson. That brought Wallner to the plate as the potential winning run, but he swung through two hittable pitches before striking out on a nasty curveball.

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Stray Notes:
-Kepler is out of sorts. He is usually pretty good at not chasing, but he chased outside the zone several times today trying to cheat on fastballs.
-After a six pitch shut down eighth inning, Cole Sands has a WHIP of 0.97. Imagine the Twins bullpen without him this year, sheesh.
-Larnach has been a curiosity in that he has hit well enough to keep his spot, but never seemed to get truly hot. To his credit, he never really slumped, either. He entered play with an .871 OPS in August, which plays pretty well.
-Santana made two incredible defensive plays. The first is below:

The second was even more impactful. With Griffin Jax on to hold the score at 4-4 in the ninth, Merrifield hit a one out looper that looked ticketed for right field, the exact kind of lucky, rally-starting hit that has bitten Jax in the past. Instead, Santana got a great break on the ball and made a somersaulting catch for the second out. Extension candidate?

What’s Next: David Festa (2-3, 5.20 ERA) goes against NL Cy Young front-runner Chris Sale (14-3, 2.62 ERA and I advocated for acquiring him prior to 2023 but who's counting). The Twins will need to reach into their bag of tricks from the mid 2010's, when they were somehow able to solve Sale on a consistent basis.

Postgame Interviews:
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Bullpen Usage Chart: