April 11, 2023

Twins bats fall silent in losses to White Sox, Astros

The Twins have a grand total of six hits over their past two games and they have two losses to show for it. They dropped the finale to the Houston Astros on Sunday and were outscored by a run on Monday, losing 4-3 to the Chicago White Sox.

The Twins scored three runs, although that was largely because the White Sox can’t play defense because they committed three errors. Still, the Pale Hose did enough to make a winner out of ace Dylan Cease, while the Twins’ Kenta Maeda, who didn’t pitch that poorly, fell to 0-2 on the season with an ERA a nudge over 4.00.

Pablo Lopez gets the ball Tuesday.

Extra innings …

-Allow me to vent for a moment: What’s up with these White Sox? So far this season they have been in the middle of a controversial play that ended the season of a budding Pittsburgh Pirates star, then on Monday three Twins were hit by pitches, plus White Sox coaching staff appeared to take issue with the placement of the Twins base coaches. Huh? As much as I admire manager Rocco Baldelli for his managerial abilities, his taciturn ways sometimes drive me crazy. If the South Siders want to play head games, then Rocco, you need to tell them to take an effin’ hike. No way Gardy would have put up with that nonsense on Monday. The Twins need to knock these Sox around the next couple of games.

-The Twins collected four hits on Monday, but only two the day before after Hunter Brown, a top pitching prospect for the Astros, allowed only an unearned run over seven innings with seven strikeouts.

-The Twins had no extra-base hits on Monday and only one on Sunday, a “Donnie Barrels” Solano double.

-The Twins turned three double plays in their 5-1 loss to the Astros.

-Be glad the Twins are 6-4 because in 2016 they started the season 0-9, and the ninth loss was a 3-1 setback to the White Sox, according to Baseball-Reference.com. They stopped the losing streak the next game with a 5-4 win over the Angels.

-And then there was this …

 

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.