The Twins took two of three games from the Tampa Bay Rays over the weekend, but they fell short of a sweep after being blanked 6-0 on Sunday.
Five Rays pitchers scattered five hits over nine innings, while Twins starter Cole Sands wasn’t nearly as sharp. Sands struck out five over four-plus innings, but he also allowed five runs, committed an error and tossed a wild pitch.
Longtime Twins reliever Tyler Duffey got some work late in the game after he was roughed up by the Yankees in their 10-4 win last week. Duffey served up a three-run bomb in that game, then expressed his own frustrations with his performance of late.
It’s still a work in progress, however, because Duffey allowed a home run, double and a walk in two innings of work.
Carlos Correa had two of the Twins’ five hits on Sunday.
Chris Archer gets the ball Monday in Seattle.
Extra innings…
-The Twins beat the Rays 9-4 on Friday and 6-5 on Saturday. The second game featured a Luis Arraez grand slam. He is hitting .359.
-The Twins got some terrible news about top prospect Royce Lewis who will again have season-ending surgery on his right knee after he reinjured it going hard up against the centerfield wall to record an out. Royce’s natural position is shortstop, but with Correa filling that position the Twins tried to find another place for him in the field to keep him in the lineup. The life of an injured athlete sometimes seems incredibly unfair.
-On June 13, 2006, the Twins’ Johan Santana and the Red Sox’s Curt Schilling battled for eight innings, with each player allowing only a run. Santana struck out 13 over eight innings, including the first six of seven batters he faced. The Red Sox scored a run in the top of the 12th, then the Twins’ Jason Kubel hit a grand slam in the bottom half of the inning to win it 5-2.
“Santana — that might be as good as I’ve ever seen him throw the baseball,” said Twins manager Ron Gardenhire to the Star Tribune. “And Schilling was unbelievable throwing the ball, moving it in and out.”
Sources: MLB.com, Baseball-Reference.com, Newspapers.com