The Moment: As is often the case with games that play into extra frames, the biggest moment of the game was the one that broke the tie. Avisail Garcia launched a two run homer off of Ryan Pressly to put the White So in front. The Twins only had 7 hits, so going behind by two was a pretty clear cut sign the Twins weren’t coming back.
The Hero: Avisail Garcia added 63.3% to the White Sox win probability, most of it when he bashed his home run in the 10th. He also had 3 other hits, so Avisail isn’t a one trick pony.
The Goat: It was a tough outing for Ryan Pressly, as he was the one who gave up that game losing homer. Matt Belisle didn’t do great to allow the tie, either but Pressly was the victim of the biggest blow. Still, it’s important to recognize that they were in these spots because they are supposed to be good.
The Soundtrack: Against my better judgement, I am listening to KFAN. Despite all that is going on with sports today, they are talking about the NFL.
The Story: Happy Easter, everyone! I hope you spent the day in a way that was personally fulfilling, which, frankly, wouldn’t have been by watching Minnesota sports. The Wild lost, as they look to waste what was a really good regular season, and the Twins drew out there loss to make it extra excruciating.
Hector Santiago had another good outing. By that, I actually mean “Hector Santiago pitched well.” I can’t keep harping on the fact that he is a ticking time bomb if I don’t recognize when he pitches like a competent major leaguer. He worked 7 innings while striking out 6, which more than doubled his season total. Yep, there it is. I’m using his one dose of success to not that he is actually not that good.
The Twins collected 7 hits in the game, with the best one coming when Brian Dozier hit an inside the park home run. If he keeps that type of thing up, he will have no problem getting back to 40 home runs this season. The problem was, once again, strikeouts. Buxton had 2, but the bigger issue was Miguel Sano collecting 4ks and Jason Castro earning 3. At this point, those two guys are in the middle of the order, and their failures to execute had a much greater impact on the game than Buxton’s.
The Twins were winning, despite whatever foibles you may have extrapolated from the above discussion, until the 8th inning. That was the inning when Jose Abreu was hit by a pitch, moved to 3rd on a Garcia hit (as pinch hitter Leury Garcia), and then scored on a sacrifice fly from Matt Davidson. How is Matt Davidson the killer of all Twins happiness?
I’m sure everything will be better starting tomorrow, when the Twins take on the not at all intimidating Cleveland Indians.
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