Twins 5, Cleveland 0: Mejia Battles Through, Hildenberger Debuts

Twins 5, Cleveland 0

Box Score

Win Expectancy & Top 5 Plays (via Fangraphs)

Mejia’s struggles to give the Twins any kind of length continued. He labored through this start, but he delivered in the moments that mattered. Mejia pitched five scoreless innings, giving up just two hits, but he also walked five batters.

In the bottom of the second and with Mejia having already issued two free passes in the inning, Jason Kipnis worked a draining eight-pitch walk to load the bases. Ball four looked awfully good.

Neil Allen went out to chat with Mejia, meanwhile Jason Castro had a lengthy conversation with home plate umpire Alfonso Marquez. Once everyone took up the game again, Mejia struck out Erik Gonzalez to end the inning. It was a huge crossroads of the game. Mejia loaded the bases again in the fourth inning, but wiggled out of that jam as well.

The Twins managed to score four runs in the top of the second inning, so for Mejia to give any of those runs back would have been deflating. The big blow came from Polanco, who smashed a two-run homer.

https://twitter.com/MLBDominicana/status/878404170956640256

Brian Dozier also had a big day at the plate, going 3-for-4 with a double and two RBI. Tyler Duffey pitched perfect sixth and seventh innings, striking out three batters, and Taylor Rogers threw a scoreless eighth.

Hildenberger, the Twins Daily Minor League Relief Pitcher of the Year the past two seasons, made his major league debut in the ninth. He struck out the first batter he faced and managed to throw a scoreless inning.

Mejia broke 100 pitches for the first time as a big leaguer. Here’s a look at his pitches per start in 2017:

Postgame With Hildenberger (via Mike Berardino)

Bullpen Usage

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

Saturday

Twins (Kyle Gibson, 6.56 ERA) at Cleveland (Corey Kluber, 3.58 ERA), 3:10 pm CT

The Twins have been fortunate enough to miss Kluber in their previous meetings with Cleveland. The Klubot is rolling right now, posting a 1.61 ERA and 0.71 WHIP over his last four starts. His K:BB ratio over that stretch is 9.75. In five career starts at Cleveland, Gibson has a 4.91 ERA and 1.48 WHIP. Edwin Encarnacion has a 1.516 OPS against Gibson over 18 plate appearances.

AL Central Standings

Cleveland 39-33

Twins 37-34 (-1.5)

Kansas City 35-36 (-.3.5)

Chicago 32-39 (-6.5)

Detroit 32-40 (-7)

Make sure to check out Cody’s Get To Know Trevor Hildenberger article from earlier today.