August 5, 2020

Twins score 7 runs, but with only 1 extra-base hit. 8 walks don’t hurt

Leave it to baseball to produce a wealth of interesting statistics.

The Twins on Tuesday had one extra-base hit, a double off the bat of Miguel Sano. But they also walked eight times, banged out seven singles, hit three sacrifice flies and that was more than enough to knock off the Pittsburgh Pirates, 7-3. The game wasn’t as close as it might appear. The Twins led 7-1 until the top of the ninth when reliever Caleb Thielbar invited trouble and was replaced by Trevor May. May secured the final two outs for his first save of the season. The Twins are now 9-2 after taking two games from the Bucs at home. Next stop Pittsburgh for two more games to wrap up the series.

Randy Dobnak gets the ball on Wednesday.

Extra innings…

-Lots of tidbits in this one. For starters, Max Kepler scored two runs and dove in a run, but his .270 batting average didn’t budge. How is that possible? He walked four times and hit a sac fly, one of three on the day for the team.

-Tuesday’s game was three hours, 39 minutes, partly because players were ordered off the field after an anonymous drone suddenly appeared over Target Field. ESPN reports that it caused a nine-minute delay.

-Jose Berrios picked up his first win of the season after he struck out six over six innings. He allowed one run on four hits and walked three. Berrios continues to show improvement with each start.

-Pirates pitching struggled with the strike zone on Tuesday. Starter Joe Musgrove walked five over three-plus innings.

-Nelson Cruz continues to turn back the clock. He went 3-for-4 with a run scored and an RBI. The 40-year-old is now hitting .395.

-Relief pitcher Thielbar last pitched in the majors in 2015. The Minnesota native spent 2013-2015 with the Twins and then the ensuing years in the minors or playing independent ball with the St. Paul Saints.

“I’m really excited to see where the organization has gone,” Thielbar told MLB.com. “I’m just glad to be able to get back with this team in particular.”

-And then there was this:

Sources: MLB.com, Baseball-Reference.com, ESPN.

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.