The worst team in baseball held the Twins scoreless for six innings on Tuesday before the club finally scored in the top of the seventh and beat the Detroit Tigers, 4-2. The Twins’ magic number is now two. If the Twins win Wednesday and the Cleveland Indians lose, the division is theirs.
Jake Odorizzi, who likely made his last regular-season start, allowed a run in the first inning, then settled down to strike out seven over six innings. He had to leave the game due to a hamstring cramp and was spelled by Kyle Gibson who showed improvement in relief. Gibson struck out four over two innings, but also gave up a run on four hits and threw 43 pitches. I guess I’d call it a step in the right direction after his previous appearances were terrible. Taylor Rogers pitched a scoreless ninth and earned his 29th save.
The Twins scored four runs on eight hits, with five of those hits coming from the bottom of the order: Jake Cave, LaMonte Wade Jr. and Willians Astudillo. Astudillo drove in two runs and so did Eddie Rosario.
Randy Dobnak gets the ball Wednesday.
Extra innings…
-The Twins are 97-60, including 51-25 on the road.
-Odorizzi improved to 15-7 with a 3.51 ERA.
-The Tigers fell to a woeful 46-110. At least Detroit slowed down the Twins, manager Ron Gardenhire told The Associated Press.
”The Twins score millions of runs and we held them to four,” Gardenhire said. ”We had chances, too. We definitely had chances.”
-Not that it really matters: Cleveland walloped the Chicago White Sox on Tuesday, 11-0.