June 30, 2022

Twins lose to Guardians 7-6 after bullpen blows 3-run lead

Any takers out there for reliever Emilio Pagan?

I have this vision that the front office tandem of Derek Falvey and Thad Levine, otherwise known as Falvey & Co on this blog, were busy working the phones after the Twins’ terrible loss in Cleveland Wednesday night, trying their best to shore up some holes in the bullpen with a possible trade.

But I doubt anyone bothered to answer their phone after the Twins took a 6-3 lead into the bottom of the 10th and then watched as Pagan and reliever Jharel Cotton coughed up four runs to lose 7-6.

Pagan entered the game and got a groundout, then uncorked a wild pitch, issued a walk and served up a double to make it 6-4, Twins. Cotton replaced him and got lineout, suffered through a passed ball — which allowed another run to score — and then served up a two-run home run.

Ballgame.

The Twins and Guardians are now tied 2-2 in their five-game series with one more game to be played on Thursday. And if the Twins were hoping to come away with a series win their best chance was Wednesday because Shane Bieber gets the ball tomorrow. Chris Archer goes for the Twins.

Extra innings…

-The season series between the Twins and Guardians is tied 5-5. All five losses for the Twins have been by one run.

-On July 1, 1984, the slowly improving Twins blasted the Detroit Tigers 9-0 before 40,000-plus fans at Tiger Stadium. Frank Viola pitched a complete game four-hitter and Kent Hrbek drove in four runs with two extra-base hits, including a homer.

“I’ll tell you what,” said Hrbek to the Minneapolis Star and Tribune. “We got chances to score runs today and we got the hits to score them. We could have scored more runs in a couple of these games if we’d gotten some hits with men on base and a few breaks. … We played good enough ball to sweep them. We showed them something.”

-No surprise: Twins Territory was not pleased after Wednesday’s loss. A sampling:

Sources: MLB.com, Baseball-Reference.com, Newspapers.com

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.