Twins Territory got a good look at two new additions to the team on Wednesday, seeing the recently acquired Michael Fulmer and Jorge Lopez pitch scoreless frames en route to a 4-1 win over the Detroit Tigers.
After Thursday’s disaster of a game, those same fans might be asking: How often can Fulmer and Lopez pitch?
Sonny Gray pitched five scoreless innings, and then three relievers — Emilio Pagan, Trevor Megill and Tyler Duffey — were plain awful, allowing nine runs on 13 hits in a 9-3 loss to the Toronto Blue Jays.
The Twins scored three runs on an RBI groundout, a bases loaded hit by a pitch and a completely meaningless ninth inning home run. In other words, not exactly the 1927 New York Yankees.
The newly acquired Tyler Mahle gets the ball on Friday. Old friend Jose Berrios toes the rubber for the Jays.
Extra innings…
-The Twins are 55-50 and still lead the AL Central by one game because only the Kansas City Royals won on Thursday. Let’s face it: the Central is a terrible division. Oh, well, it’s lame, but it’s ours.
-Why are the Twins still hanging on to Pagan? Who knows? He now has seven blown saves and an ERA of 4.97.
-On Aug. 4, 1985, the California Angels’ Rod Carew singled off Twins pitcher Frank Viola to record the 3,000th hit of his career.
Reporter Dennis Brackin captured the moment for the Minneapolis Star and Tribune.
It was classic Rod Carew. Weight back, bat coiled behind his left ear, a snap of the wrists and a line-drive single to left field.
Hit No. 3,000 came at 3:47 p.m. Sunday (Minneapolis time) off Twins left-hander Frank Viola in the third inning. It was the way No. 3,000 should have been.
“A patented Carew hit, wasn’t it?” said Twins first baseman Kent Hrbek.
So solid. So vintage opposite field. And so filled with meaning, coming against a Minnesota team for which he collected his first 2,085 major league hits.
Carew, too, was pleased his 3,000th hit came against the Twins because Tony Oliva was coaching first base and Harmon Killebew was doing the TV broadcast.
“The thing I felt good about was doing it with Tony and Harmon here,” Carew told the paper. “Tony took me under his wing when I was first with the Twins. Harmon was a superstar, but he always treated me as one of the guys.”
Sources: MLB.com, Baseball-Reference.com, Newspapers.com