The Twins and Royals grinded out a low-scoring Saturday night affair, with plenty of crispy LOBster frustration for the home nine. Down 1-0 for most of the game, it was a 2-0 final that saw a Royal victory after the Twins continuously failed to deliver with runners on.
First, a Twin hitter doubled his career totals. “What?!” you say, “how is this possible?” Well, in the second inning, Carson McCusker earned his second big-league hit — another dinkity-doink job fisted into shallow right field, right along the line, but a hit nevertheless. He’d be stranded at second after Cory Provus uttered that classic Twins broadcasting phrase, “…and now it’s up to Mickey Gasper.” (Okay, fine, Gasper walked to extend the inning — it was Alan Roden’s strikeout that moved things along.)
Instead, a two-out RBI double by Maikel Garcia was the opening salvo tonight, bringing a run all the way around from first base, and putting the Royals up 1-0 in the third.
The Twins would stage an inning of their own in the home half. Back-to-back singles from Austin Martin and Ryan Jeffers set up the makings of a bigger frame, but two straight hard grounders to short resulted in three outs and no runs scored. Minnesota would end the first third of the game down a run to the Royals, but with four hits to their two. (A missed ball-four call to Luke Keaschall didn’t particularly help.)
Meanwhile, Bailey Ober was starting to look like himself again. Some traffic in the fifth sparked some concern with Ober around 75 pitches and beginning to show some cracks, but a timely 6-4-3 twin bill got him through five solid innings with the score still just 1-0 Royals. (Ober’s final line read six solid innings, just the one run on four hits, and four K’s in a bounce-back start.)
Speaking of cracks, it seemed like every inning against Noah Cameron, the Twins watched the leadoff man reach. The same was true in the fifth, an inning which featured a compilation of the squad getting bunt reps in during BP, then saw a 2-for-2 Austin Martin show bunt on a 2-0 count. It also featured the Twins scoring no runs at all, their general gameplan for this evening’s contest.
So, it was up to a new-look Rocco’s Magical Arm Barn to keep the score 1-0 and give the Minnesota offense a chance to contribute. They did nicely, with Michael Tonkin pitching a shutout 7th and Justin Topa earning himself a spot on the T-Mobile Coverage Cam with a nice defensive play as part of a scoreless 8th.
But with the Royals still leading entering the 9th, it was Erasmo Ramirez who got the ball instead of Cole Sands, warming up alongside him. A few hits strung together by the Royals made it a 2-0 ballgame with only three outs for the Twins to play with.
The Twins said “I don’t WANNA play!” and went down 1-2-3 in the ninth, in a bit of a “later, taters” moment.
It was the 7th time this year the Twins have been shut out, and this one would have been a much more frustrating affair if the Twins were in playoff contention. Missed opportunities and rallies cut short led the way in this one, but the Twins will have the opportunity tomorrow afternoon to win the series against Kansas City. Hope to see you there!
SP Bailey Ober (6 IP, 4 H, ER, BB, 4 K)
RP Erasmo Ramirez (IP, 2 H, ER, BB, 0 K)
3B Royce Lewis (0-for-4, 2 K)
‘ The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties ’
‘ Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.twinkietown.com ’
