Despite the eight losses and the stratospheric earned run average, Tyler Duffey won his eighth game on Saturday, a 5-3 win over the visiting Kansas City Royals. That’s back-to-back wins for the Rice University product, who held the Houston Astros to one run on Monday and limited the Royals to two runs over seven innings on Saturday.
Duffey’s eight wins leads the starting rotation by a wide margin. The next closest is Ervin Santana with five wins, although he has the lowest starting pitcher ERA at 3.62.
Duffey has had an interesting season after he went 5-1 with a 3.10 ERA as a rookie last year. When he pitches well, he’s very good, and when things aren’t going just right, he’s terrible, which likely explains the elevated ERA. For example, he lasted two-plus innings in a 13-2 loss to the Boston Red Sox on July 21. But he was sensational against the New York Yankees on June 26 after he struck out eight over eight innings and limited the pinstripers to two hits and one run. In two seasons with the Twins, Duffey is now 13-9 with an ERA of 4.90.
Duffey has the stuff to win consistently, including a breaking ball with good 12-to-6 movement, a la Bert Blyleven. But if he can only show flashes of brilliance, then the Twins have another Kyle Gibson on their hands. And they don’t need that.
Extra innings…
-Saturday’s win snapped a four-game losing streak.
-Brian Dozier and Eddie Rosario hit back-to-back home runs Saturday, the 11th time this season the Twins have had back-to-back jacks. The record is 14, which was set by the 1964 Twins.
#MNTwins have gone back to back 11x, thing '86 club for 2nd-most in Twins history.
Record is 14 by '64 edition.
— Mike BerardinoNDI (@MikeBerardino) August 14, 2016
-Dozier’s home run was his 25th of the season and the 100th of his career.
-Twins catcher Kurt Suzuki has apparently been placed on trade waivers. Here’s how that likely plays out, according to the Pioneer Press:
If Suzuki goes unclaimed, the Twins would be free to work out a deal with any interested club. If he is claimed, the team that is awarded the claim would then have 48 additional hours to work out a trade with the Twins.
– Newcomer Hector Santiago technically leads the rotation in wins with 10. But none of those wins happened with the Twins, but with the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim. Santiago, who so far is 0-2 with the Twins, goes for his first win on Sunday.