Life offers three inescapable realities: death, the Internal Revenue Service and the Minnesota Twins losing to the New York Yankees. They lost Thursday, they lost Friday and they lost again Saturday, 7-1, to drop the series to the Bronx Bombers. But at least Mother Nature is a Twins fan because she has nudged a hurricane in the direction of New York City, which means Sunday’s finale has been postponed and rescheduled for Sept. 13, according to MLB.com.
The Twins now head to Boston to take on the Red Sox Tuesday. A starter hasn’t been named.
Extra innings…
-In the good news department, pitching prospect, Joe Ryan, who came to the Twins via the trade for Nelson Cruz, pitched well on Friday for the Triple-A St. Paul Saints.
According to MLB.com:
The 25-year-old allowed one run and one hit in four innings with nine strikeouts, fanning the first six batters of the game. His only blemish came on a fourth-inning solo homer. Ryan has tallied high strikeout and low walk totals across his three-year pro career with 318 strikeouts and 52 walks in 221 innings, a K/9 of 13.0. In 2021, Ryan has amassed 84 strikeouts and 11 walks in 61 innings with a 3.54 ERA.
-More Twins/Yankees: On Aug. 22. 1968, Twins pitcher, Jim Merritt, lost his shutout against the Yankees when Mickey Mantle hit a pinch-hit home run in the ninth before almost 16,000 fans at the Met. The game was played in one-hour, 42 minutes, according to Baseball-Reference.com. It was Mantle’s 16th home run of the season. He would hit only two more in his final season of major league baseball.
Merritt allowed only one run on three hits over nine innings with four strikeouts to improve to 9-14 with a 3.21 ERA.