June 28, 2018

Twins drop series to South Siders (so much for predictions)

My crystal ball must have a crack in it because after predicting that the Twins had a shot to go 12-4 over the next 16 games due to some relatively weak competition (the White Sox, Orioles and Royals), the Twins lost Tuesday and Wednesday to lose the series against the Pale Hose.

Wednesday’s loss was an anemic affair. The Twins scored one run on five hits and lost 6-1. Here’s the problem: Although the Twins had five hits, one player, Ehire Adrianza, had four of those hits and the only extra-base hit of the night. The fifth hit came off the bat of Brian Dozier. Other than that, the rest of the lineup was hitless. The team also didn’t score until the ninth inning.

Starter Kyle Gibson had an unusual outing, perhaps in an effort to give the bullpen a night off. Despite giving up five runs on 11 hits, Gibson still went seven innings and threw 113 pitches. Yet he only walked one batter and struck out seven. He is now 2-6 on the season with a 3.48 ERA.

The Twins will try to avoid the sweep Thursday. Jake Odorizzi gets the ball.

Extra innings…

-Although the bats showed little punch, manager Paul Molitor and third-base coach Gene Glynn showed more fire after they were thrown out for arguing balk-related calls, according to MLB.com.

-The Twins are now 34-42 on the season, 8.5 games back of the Cleveland Indians in second place. Second place? That’s right. Although the Twins are 4-6 in their last 10 games, the Detroit Tigers are 2-8 over the same period. And it only got worse for Detroit Wednesday after pitching coach Chris Bosio was canned for making insensitive comments to a team employee. He will be replaced by Everett native, Rick Anderson, the Twins’ former pitching coach. Anderson was previously the Tigers’ bullpen coach.

-MLB.com reports that starting pitcher Adalberto Mejia is set to return to the Twins to face the Chicago Cubs on Saturday. Mejia has pitched well at Triple-A Rochester. In 49-plus innings he has a 2.74 ERA, with 50 strikeouts and 16 walks, according to MLB.com.

-Wednesday’s Twins/White Sox game attracted 19,446 to Guaranteed Rate Field.

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.