The Moment: Last night, the “Moment” really was a fulcrum in the momentum. Byron Buxton had tied the game with a solo home run in the bottom of the 4th, and the Twins were threatening to take the lead in the 5th. There was a runner at each of the corners with Kennys Vargas at the plate. Vargas bounced into a double play, then the Rockies went nuts in the top of the 6th, and it was all over from that point.
The Hero: Charlie Blackmon is a very hairy dude. Someone with that much hair shouldn’t be able to move as quickly as he does, but he does! More impressively, he hits really well. He had a 2 run home run to blow the game wide open in the 6th, all part of a 3 hit, 3 RBI night. Hairy jerk.
The Goat: Phil Hughes did one important thing. he got the game through the 5th inning, meaning the bullpen didn’t have to strain themselves as much. Of course, he also gave up hits and 5 runs, so it wasn’t all good news.
The Sounddtrack: Unsteady – X Ambassadors – This song is dedicated to the Minnesota Twins bullpen.
The Story – The Twins went into the game with Kennys Vargas, Miguel Sano and Robbie Grossman in he lineup, with Eduardo Esscobar as a designated hitter. It was a weird line up, to say the least. The weird part was that it was Byron Buxton who continued the Twins’ homer streak, pushing it to 16 games.
The Rockies are good at hitting, and Phil Hughes is prone to giving up a lot of hits and runs at this stage in his career. I can’t even pretend to be upset about this in the scope of a 162 game season. Bad matchups happen through the season, and this was one of those games. I think I am justified in being upset about Buxton’s 2nd inning sacrifice bunt, especially since his next at bat was that home run. I have no problem with Buxton shooting for a bunt for a hit, or for doing something like that late in a game, but it was only the 2nd inning. The 2nd. Head scratching.
Charlie Blackmon and Gerardo Parra were the two Rockies that homered, with both blasts coming off of Phil Hughes. Tyler Duffey and Craig Breslow pitched capably to close the game out. There was a weird blip at the end of the game, when Chris Gimenez checked a swing on a pitch in the dirt. The appeal went to first, and it was called strike 3. Catcher Tony Wolters went to congratulate Adam Ottavino on the mound, while Gimenez trotted to first. The pitch was in the dirt! Gimenez’ heads up play kept the game alive for one more batter. Brian Dozier flew out one batter later, ending any threat of the craziest way to lose a game ever pretty quickly.
The Twins were rained out tonight, so we get to dwell on this one for a while, and it’s not really a problem that it took me like 20 hours to write the recap. Double header tomorrow.
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