The Moment: The best moment of this game might be one that didn’t happen. In a cool, drizzly night, there were no mid-inning pitching changes, which is awesome. For the actual on field performance, the honor goes to Brian Dozier’s 7th inning home run that rattled around the seats for a bit before anyone could go get it, and doubled the Twins score and their lead.
The Hero: Ervin Santana, man. He went a full 9, allowing 2 hits and striking out 6. En fuego.
The Goat: Only Johnathan Schoop had a positive WPA among Orioles hitters. It was bad all the way around, but Adam Jones happened t be up after Schoop, who was on base twice when Jones was retired.
The Soundtrack: Inside Out – Eve 6 – This is a song that has surprising staying power. I wonder what Eve 6 is up to these days.
The Story: This is pretty easy. The story was Ervin Santana. Santana isn’t a crazy strike out guy, which means that when he has it going, his pitch count stays down, and he has the stamina to continue to dominate. Indeed, he only struck out 7, but his defense and weak induced contact led to a shutout of wone of the more intimidating offenses in baseball.
The two RBI were clubbed by two players at opposite ends of the public opinion meter in Minnesota. Byron Buxton squirted a single through the infield to bring in Minnesota’s first run, while Brian Dozier launched his 6th home run deep into the seats. Maybe Buxton will get the respect he deserves soon, and we can all realize that any offense he brings is a cherry on top of his defense. Maybe Dozier can, I don’t know, teach us all a lesson about styling our hair.
The three hottest hitters in the Twins lineup actually all struck out 7 times, collectively (more than the entire Orioles’ squad) and went 1-12. I’m talking about Joe Mauer, Miguel Sano and Max Kepler. It’s nice to know that even when the offensive core has an off night, the rest of the team can pick them up.
Add The Sports Daily to your Google News Feed!
