Minneapolis – How do hitters formulate an effective game plan against a starter who has 10 different pitches? That’s the question the Minnesota Twins had to answer against the Royals, Seth Lugo to open a three-game series Friday night.
Their answer? Swing early, and don’t overthink what pitch could be coming.
“He’s a really good pitcher with a ton of different pitches, so you’ve just got to be smart,” said Matt Wallner, who got the offense going against Lugo with a solo homer in the first. “Not swing at what he wants you to.”
Wallner’s opposite-field home run was just the appetizer for Minnesota’s offensive feast in their 9-3 victory over Lugo and the Kansas City Royals. It also doesn’t hurt when you have one of the hottest rookies on the planet in your lineup. Luke Keaschall was only in his third game back from the injured list, but he continued to rake as if his forearm never really broke.
Wallner tied the game 1-1 with his home run after Joe Ryan gave up a solo shot to Mike Yastrzemski, who the Royals acquired at the deadline, to start the game. Ryan Jeffers and Kody Clemens followed up on Wallner’s home run with a walk and a single to set the stage for Keaschall.
He delivered with an opposite-field RBI single to put the Twins up 2-1. That extended his hitting and on-base streak to start his career, with nine straight hits and on-base appearances for 10 consecutive games. Keaschall’s hit streak puts him in an elite group of 27 players since baseball integrated in 1947, marking the start of their career with a hit streak of nine or more games.
Twins manager Rocco Baldelli had a 13-game hit streak to start his career and has been impressed with what Keaschall can do.
“It starts with he’s got good ability,” said Baldelli. “He’s always hit. He hit all the way up, and now he’s hitting in the big leagues. And it’s not hard to see why. And he’ll continue to make adjustments as the game changes in front of him. People are going to attack him differently, but I think the way he goes – I think he has what it takes to be able to handle all that when it comes.”
After the home run allowed to Yazstremski, Ryan returned to the dominant form he’s had against the Royals for his entire career. He only allowed four additional base runners through five innings while striking out five. Ryan now owns a 1.34 ERA in 60 ⅓ career innings against KC, but he doesn’t know why he’s had more success against them than other teams.
“I really don’t think about anything like that, good or bad. It’s just outing to outing,” Ryan said. “Most of the time, it’s just making good pitches or not making good pitches… You’ve still got to pitch and you’ve still got to play good defense and play good offense, so we did that tonight.”
Minnesota’s seven runs off Lugo were even more of a help for Ryan on a hot, humid night. He entered the game with a 3.04 ERA on the season but tied his career high in homers allowed at 19. Wallner put him at 20, and Kody Clemens made it 21 for good measure. Clemens was impressed with how the lineup came together off a pitcher with an unpredictable arsenal.
“He’s got 10 pitches or whatever it is, so honestly just trying to simplify the top four and kind of have a plan depending on if you want to sit on the hard stuff or soft stuff,” said Clemens. “My plan was to really stay on the fastball and trust my instincts tonight, but yeah, it was just us trying to stay disciplined and not go after pitches on the edges.”
Travis Adams replaced Ryan on the mound in the sixth, who was coming off his first dominant outing in the majors against the Detroit Tigers. His first at-bat of the outing against Bobby Witt Jr. didn’t go as planned.
Instead of throwing a cutter, Adams threw a back-door slider, and Witt made him pay with a 456-foot homer that landed in the third deck of left field. Fortunately for Adams, he’d get the better of him next time around.
“I forgot what he did in the previous AB and attacked him and threw a fastball up and in,” said Adams. “Which is kind of the area we knew was the area best for fastballs, and that went 3-2 and got the K.”
Minnesota’s 9-3 victory was their first time getting back-to-back wins by five or more runs since June 2 and 3 on the road against the Athletics. They’re also now 22-6 against the Royals at Target Field dating back to the start of 2022. Bailey Ober will go against Noah Cameron for Game 2 of the series on Saturday.
‘ The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties ’
‘ Some details of this article were extracted from the following source zonecoverage.com ’
