Four Twins pitchers combined to one-hit the Milwaukee Brewers on Saturday, including starter Jose Berrios, who not only no-hit the Brewers for six innings, he also had pitched a perfect game to that point. He struck out 12 over six innings with no hits and no walks and yet Berrios was lifted after 84 pitches.
The Twins went on to win 2-0, getting a home run from Byron Buxton and an RBI single from Luis Arraez, who also happens to be filling in defensively for the injured Josh Donaldson at third base.
To read MLB.com’s coverage of the game, I guess the argument to remove Berrios goes something like this: He isn’t fully stretched out yet this early in the season, so to avoid injury, he needed to come out of the game. But I’m not sure I’m buying that. Eighty-four pitches over six innings seems pretty efficient to me.
The Twins go for the series win on Sunday. Michael Pineda gets the ball.
Extra innings…
-There were a lot of near records and new records produced by this game, according to MLB.com.
- Minnesota fell five outs shy of the first combined no-hitter in club history.
- Twins pitchers combined for 17 strikeouts, two shy of the club record.
- Berrios’ 12 strikeouts matched a career high, and he became the only pitcher in franchise history to strike out that many without allowing a hit through six innings.
-And then there was this…
José Berríos of the @Twins and Corbin Burnes of the @Brewers are the first pair of opposing starters to have 10+ strikeouts and 1 or fewer hits allowed in the same game in the modern era.
— Stats By STATS (@StatsBySTATS) April 4, 2021
-Reliever Taylor Rogers stuck out the side in the seventh on 13 pitches.
-The Twins scored two runs on four hits, getting contributions from Buxton, Arraez, Andrelton Simmons and Nelson Cruz.
-Donaldson is on the 10-day injured list after he injured a hamstring legging out a double on Thursday.
-Ex-Twin Eddie Rosario homered and earned two free passes in Cleveland’s loss to the Detroit Tigers on Saturday.