MIN 8, HOU 2: Twins Win! Take Season Series vs Astros!

Entering this two-week stretch of four straight series against the Baltimore Orioles and the Houston Astros, many Twins fans might have looked at them as a wash. If the Twins could just take care of the Orioles, there won’t be much pressure on them to do well against the Astros. Well, not only did the Twins take care of the Orioles going 6-0, they also took care of the Astros, finishing off the season series win 4-3!

Box Score

Berrios: 7.0 IP, 7 H, 2 ER, 0 BB, 5 K, 77.3% strikes (68 of 88 pitches)

Home Runs: Castro (3)

Multi-Hit Games: Polanco (2-3, 2B&3B), Gonzalez (2-3), Schoop (2-4), Castro (2-4, 2B&HR)

WPA of +0.1: Castro .267, Berrios .136, Schoop .102

WPA of -0.1: None

(Chart via FanGraphs)

Jose Berrios continued the trend of Minnesota Twins starters giving the team much needed length to help save the bullpen during this stretch of 33 games in 33 days. Since that stretch started back with the double-header in Baltimore, Twins starters have gone at least five innings in all 13 starts.

After getting down 1-0 early, Jason Castro answered back in the bottom of the third, hitting a leadoff solo shot to tie the game at 1.

(Chart via Baseball Savant)

The bottom of the fourth is when all of the fun happened! After Eddie Rosario got robbed of a sure-fire double by Josh Reddick to lead off the inning, C.J. Cron walked, Marwin Gonzalez singled, Jonathan Schoop singled (driving in Cron), Jason Castro doubled (driving in Gonzalez & Schoop), Byron Buxton tripled (driving in Castro), Max Kepler hit a sac-fly (driving in Buxton), *Catches Breath*, Jorge Polanco doubled, Nelson Cruz doubled (driving in Polanco), before Eddie Rosario finally ended the inning with a strikeout. All told, the Twins put up six runs, and took control with a commanding 7 to 1 lead.

The Twins were able to add their eighth, and final, run of the game in the bottom of the fifth on an RBI groundout from Jason Castro. This gave Castro his fourth RBI of the day, doubling his season total that he had entering play today.

After Berrios completed seven strong innings, the Twins were able to turn to Ryne Harper and Trevor May, who were able to shut the door on yet another Twins win! Hopefully the Twins can build off this 6-1 home stand as they make their yearly dreaded trip to Yankee Stadium.

Bullpen Usage

Here’s a quick look at the number of pitches thrown by the bullpen over the past five days:

(Morin’s pitches were thrown for AAA Rochester)

Next Three Games

Fri at NYY, 6:05 pm CT (Gibson-Paxton)

Sat at NYY, 12:05 pm CT (Odorizzi-Happ)

Sun at NYY, 12:05 pm CT (Pineda-German)

Last Game

MIN 6, HOU 2: MARTIN! MARTIN! MARTIN!

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