Padres 5, Twins 3: Zebby Matthews Makes His Own Mess

Box Score
SP: Zebby Matthews: 5.0 IP, 4 H, 2 ER, 2 BB, 1 K (92 pitches, 59 strikes (64.1%)
Home Runs: None
Bottom 3 WPA: Zebby Matthews (-0.354), Carlos Santana (-0.083), Willi Castro (-0.077)

Win Probability Chart (via FanGraphs) 

This week, there's plenty of opportunity to be sentimental, as the Minnesota Twins visit the San Diego Padres. Old Friends Luis Arraez and Donovan Solano are both suiting up for the opponent. Monday night, Royce Lewis’s high-school baseball coach, Brett Kay, was watching him in person for the first time. Jayce Tingler was also returning to the place he once managed. The team waiting for them, though, is not especially friendly.

The sunny San Diego weather did have the bats warm and ready to go from the beginning. In the first inning, after Trevor Larnach stroked a single, Matt Wallner (who had a rough Texas series) wanted to erase that from memory, and pulled a double down the right-field line. It was enough to allow Larnach to come around to score and put the Twins up early, 1-0. 

The Padres weren’t going to sit back and be silent. They put together a rally in the first inning, themselves. Zebby Matthews faced a flurry of challenging moments early in his second start. A hit-by-pitch for Arraez, who usually doesn’t need much help getting on base, followed by a Jurickson Profar flare single, put Matthews in a quick hole. 

With runners on first and third, Matthews induced an out from Jake Cronenworth on a grounder. It was also enough to score Arraez to tie up the game. Matthews was almost able to get out of his trouble, but with two outs, Xander Bogaerts hit a single to put the Padres up 2-1 at the end of the first inning. 

In the Twins half of the second inning, they quickly loaded the bases with one out with an Edouard Julien single, Christian Vazquez single, and Austin Martin single. What followed was one of the more savvy running plays we have seen, from rookie Martin. 

In the next at-bat, Willi Castro hit a ground ball to the right side of the infield, where Bogaerts had an excellent opportunity to tag Martin and throw out Castro for a double play. Instead, Martin alertly backpedaled to avoid the tag long enough to allow Castro to be safe and score Julien from third.

Miscue and Walks loom large
With the Padres up in the 3rd inning, Matthews faced a challenging base load and two-out situation. How he got there was not characteristic of this Twins team and Zebby himself. With one out, Carlos Santana missed a sharp grounder off his glove. Julien quickly recovered the ball to keep the ball out alive, but Matthews could not hang onto Julien’s throw as he covered first base. 

On the road to the bases-loaded situation, Matthews would then walk two batters. That coming from the right-hander who had walked seven batters all season throughout his minor league stops. Zebby still had a chance to get out of the inning safely, but fellow rookie Jackson Merrill, who is putting together his own impressive season, hit a bases-clearing double to put the Padres up 5-2.  

The score won’t tell the whole story
The score when Matthews left the game was not good, with a 5-2 deficit. It doesn’t tell the whole story of how Matthews's outing went. In his second start, he faced a very good Padres lineup. He held his own in many ways and, in many moments, was one batter, pitch, or defensive play away from a clean inning. That is the growth edge from rookie to regular, reliable rotation arm. It is the type of outing that Matthews certainly will have hoped would have yielded better results, but there is a lot to continue to be excited about with the rookie pitcher. 

The tandem of bullpen arms that did come in for the Twins did keep the score where it was when Matthews left the game, albeit in two very different fashions. Trevor Richards, over two innings, left fans with a moth full of fingernails as he stranded runners on the basepaths. On the other hand, Caleb Thielbar used only nine pitches to get through the eighth inning and get the bats back up to the plate.

The Twins did make a last minute surbe in the ninth while facing Padres closer Robert Suarez. Julien would walk and advance to second on defensive indifference. Vazquez would bring him around on a single. Resulting in a pinch-hitting opportunity for Jose Miranda as the potential game-tying run. While Miranda gave one pitch a long-ride foul, he ultimately would ground out, and the Padres ended up winners on Monday.

What’s Next?
The Twins will look to even the series with their best pitcher on the mound, Bailey Ober. The Padres will counter with Martin Perez, who put together a 4.62 ERA for the season. Fans can expect a right-handed heavy starting lineup as the Padres send out the left-hander. 

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