March 18, 2021

Make that 2 Twins pitching duds in a row

Twins pitcher Jose Berrios appears to have started something.

After a scintillating start to exhibition play, Berrios finally turned in a stinker on Tuesday and allowed four runs on eight hits for his first loss in Grapefruit League action. Perhaps “stinker” is not the right word because allowing four runs is certainly not the end of the world.

But if Berrios’ effort didn’t meet the definition of “stinker,” Matt Shoemaker’s outing on Wednesday certainly did. You know the quickest way to allowing seven earned runs? A grand slam and three-run home run. Shoemaker accomplished both and was finished after three innings in a 9-1 blowout loss to the Boston Red Sox. Shoemaker served up seven runs and the bullpen allowed two more runs the rest of the way.

Twins hitting, meanwhile, was almost non-existent. Someone named Caleb Hamilton got a hit, as did La Tortuga and JT Riddle, who played shortstop on Wednesday. Three hits is pretty meager when the lineup includes Josh Donaldson, Byron Buxton, Nelson Cruz and Luis Arraez.

The Twins are off on Thursday. The Dobber gets the ball Friday.

Extra innings…

-Red Sox prospect Bobby Dalbec hit the grand slam. He’s now hitting .333 with five home runs this spring and yet manager Alex Cora batted him ninth on Wednesday.

-The Twins had one extra-base hit.

-Twins reliever Derek Law struck out the side in the seventh.

-The Twins are 6-9 through Wednesday.

-The Chicago White Sox are 4-9 after losing to the Los Angeles Dodgers, 4-3.

-Ex-Twin and current Cleveland Indians player, Eddie Rosario, went hitless again on Wednesday and is now hitting .143. However, the Twins’ Buxton is hitting .118, Alex Kirilloff .120, Jake Cave .143 and Ryan Jeffers .176.

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.