September 1, 2020

The Twins are in trouble, folks

For the Twins rotation, bullpen and offense, it goes something like this: not enough innings pitched, too many innings pitched and hits and runs in bits, but not enough overall to win.

That combination played out Monday night and resulted in an 8-5 loss to the Chicago White Sox, the Twins’ sixth straight. The South Siders are now in first place, followed by the Indians and then the Twins, 2.5 games back of the Pale Hose.

As they have done all season, the Twins scored first, scoring four runs in the first three innings. But then the offense fell silent and managed only one run over the remaining six. When it was all over the Twins scored five runs on five hits.

Starter Rich Hill lasted all of three-plus innings, which meant the bullpen had to give the Twins five-plus innings. They weren’t up to it. Tyler Clippard allowed two runs, Trevor May served up a home run and closer Taylor Rogers, who is looking less and less like an ace these days, coughed up three runs in the ninth. Ballgame.

Michael Pineda gets the ball Tuesday. Think Big Mike could give the Twins seven innings? It’s a tall order because Mike hasn’t faced major league pitching in a while.

Extra innings…

-Max Kepler will want to forget Monday’s game. He was hitless in five trips to the plate with a strikeout and he also had a costly error late in the game.

-Miguel Sano had a good game. He went 2-for-3 with a home run, his seventh. He also scored three runs, drove in a run and earned a free pass to first base.

-The trade deadline has come and gone and the Twins made no moves. That’s fine because what the Twins really need is for a whole lot of players to get off the injured list and back into the rotation and lineup.

-The White Sox scored eight runs on 11 hits, but it could have been a lot worse. They were 4-for-20 (20!) with runners in scoring position and left 10 men on base.

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.