September 11, 2017

Twins split 4-game series with Royals after Sunday stinker

The good news: The Twins are done playing the Kansas City Royals in 2017. The bad news: The Twins couldn’t win the series after nothing went right for them Sunday in an 11-3 loss.

The ageless one, Bartolo Colon, showed his age Sunday after he gave up six runs in one-plus innings of work, or 32 pitches. And the bullpen wasn’t much better as they surrendered five more runs the rest of the way.

The bright spots: Kennys Vargas homered (his 10th) and doubled, and Byron Buxton hit his sixth triple.

Kyle Gibson gets the ball Tuesday versus the San Diego Padres.

The Twins finally come home. They have Monday off, then welcome the Padres for two games this week, followed by four more at home against the Toronto Blue Jays through the weekend. These are must-win games for the Twins before they face the Yankees, Tigers and Indians the following week. The Twins are 1-1 vs. the Padres this season and 2-1 against the Blue Jays.

Extra innings…

-The Twins finished their season series with the Royals at 11-8.

-Defensively, the Twins had a fantastic four-game series with the Royals after the team turned 11 double plays: Sunday (3), Saturday (2), Friday (2) and Thursday (4).

COMMENTS

Hi, I’m Rolf Boone, Twins fan.

I became a fan of the Minnesota Twins after a friendly wager in the early 1980s. I survived Ron Davis, the meltdown in Cleveland, Phil Bradley at the Kingdome and then marveled at a rising generation of stars and two World Series wins in 1987 and 1991. Brad Radke made the 1990s bearable, while Kirby Puckett’s eye injury, exit from the game and eventual death made it almost too much to bear. The new century ushered in more talent — Joe Mauer, Johan Santana, Joe Nathan, Torii Hunter, Justin Morneau — and consecutive seasons of playoff baseball, followed by consecutive seasons of losing baseball. A winning season returned in 2015. So here we are. Go Twins.