The Moment: The Twins, if you are only looking at this post and didn’t catch the game itself, held an 8-2 lead going into the 8th inning. Later that inning, Josh Reddick smoked a double that brought in a pair of runs that put the Astros in front. They…. weren’t done.
The Hero: Reddick and his big hit in the 9th were worth nearly half a win. That’s a very clutch performance from the former Oakland Athletic.
The Goat: Get this straight. Craig Breslow has been a revelation this year. He also was part of the grueling marathon yesterday and threw 25 pitches, and had worked just two days before that. It’s hardly surprising that his arm was unable to render the same magic that it had earlier in the year. The Astros scored 3 runs off of Breslow on 3 hits while he only retired one batter.
The Soundtrack: The Greatest- Sia – This song is not about the last two Twins games, I can tell you that much.
The Story: The Twins, as I noted, jumped out to an 8-2 lead as Ervin Santana posted an excellent start, working 7 innings while allowing only 1 earned run. On offence. Miguel Sano tried to shake his recent slump with a home run, while Robbie Grossman also added a moonshot and Joe Mauer continued to remind us all of the mid 2000’s.
Then bad things started happening. Byron Buxton went down with an injury, lacerating a finger, which led to a sub optimal outfield situation, including Ehire Adrianza in left field. The Twins made moves to add two relievers, but in that crucial 8th inning, the Twins used none of them. Drew Rucinski came in for the 9th and gave up 3 more runs, but he got through the inning. The Twins triumvirate of Belisle, Brelow and Pressly allowed 11 in a third of an inning apiece. They worked 30, 25 and 25 pitches on Sunday, respectively. Like I said, Rucinski came in, while Jason Wheeler did not. Baffling. As if to make matters worse, and to draw it out longer, there was a microscopic rain delay in the midst of that Godawful 8th inning.
This is two games in a row where the manager has made a series of questionable decisions that ultimately contributed to losses. This is only a couple games, but the fact that they were consecutive makes them stand out. This is the second game in a row in which the bullpen cataclysmicly exploded, so there are open questions about how the front office attacked free agency this year. Let’s relax and revisit the first question in a week. Let’s speculate on free agency decisions when the season is over. And let’s hope a disaster like today doesn’t happen again.
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