Despite hitting three home runs, it wasn’t enough to overcome three mistakes late in the game, which led to a 7-5 Detroit win over Minnesota on Monday in Game 1 of their five-game series.
Jose Miranda, Gary Sanchez and Gio Urshela connected for home runs, but those three also committed two throwing errors and allowed a passed ball. Twins pitching served up seven runs, but only five of those runs were earned. The trio of Twins also had seven of the Twins’ 10 hits.
Starter Dylan Bundy just missed a quality start, allowing four runs, all earned, over six innings with no walks and three strikeouts. Reliever Joe Smith absorbed the loss. He’s now 1-1 with a 1.69 ERA.
The Twins play two on Tuesday. Devin Smeltzer gets the ball in Game 2 and Cole Sands gets it in Game 3.
Extra innings…
-The Twins did get a series-splitting win over the Royals on Sunday, 7-3.
-The grand experiment to somehow find a way to keep top prospect Royce Lewis and Carlos Correa on the field and in the lineup at the same time has so far failed miserably.
Lewis played in center field on Sunday, and he made a fine catch except that it forced him to bang up hard against the outfield wall. Now, he’s on the injured list with a bruised right knee, the same knee that previously required surgery.
-More bad news: Correa has joined pitcher Joe Ryan and outfielder Gilberto Celestino on the COVID-19 injured list.
-On June 2, 1986, Rod Carew announced his retirement from the game of baseball. At the time, Carew said he plans never to compete in an old-timers game, according to a wire story that ran June 3 in the Minneapolis Star and Tribune.
“I have seen so many guys get out there and try to relive the past. I don’t intend to do that. I don’t want people to see me like that. I want them to remember seeing me when I had the skills and did the job.”
Carew, who spent 12 of his 19 seasons with the Twins, exited the game with a career batting average of .328 and 3,053 hits. He was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 1991.
Sources: Baseball-Reference.com, Newspapers.com