Lin-Manuel Miranda, the creator of the wildly popular 2015 musical “Hamilton,” has watched as the curtain has been raised and fallen to adoring crowds ever since.
His cousin, Twins’ infielder Jose Miranda, also had a breakout rookie season in 2022 in which he slashed .268/.325/.426 with 15 home runs and a team-leading 66 RBI. The following season he suffered a sophomore slump and lost his job, demoted to Triple-A St. Paul that also included time spent dealing with a shoulder injury.
It was a bad enough situation to think that Miranda’s own performance was about to close on Broadway and be reduced to dinner theater on the outskirts of some forgotten town. Palookaville fits the bill, I think.
However, the final curtain call may not be in the offing after Miranda’s performance on Monday in a 9-2 loss to those New York Yankees. Encouragingly, Miranda banged out two hits, including a double, scored a run and drove in a run.
“I just want to help the team,” Miranda told MLB.com toward the end of the 2023 season. “But it’s going to depend on what they want to do with me. They’re going to make the decision, and obviously, myself, too, I’ve got to let them know how I feel.”
Other than Miranda’s performance, there wasn’t much more to like about Monday’s loss. Simeon Woods Richardson made a scoreless appearance, as did Steven Okert, who came to the Twins from the Marlins in exchange for Nick Gordon.
But after that four Twins pitchers, including Princeton man Matthew Bowman, allowed nine runs.
Extra innings …
-The Twins, losing 3-0 to the Philadelphia Phillies going into the bottom of the ninth inning on Tuesday, rallied to tie the game on two hits, a walk, a hit batter and one more single to exit the game at 3-3.
-Who stood out in Tuesday’s game? I’m going to say reliever Griffin Jax who entered the contest in the second inning and struck out the side on 12 pitches. Free agent reliever Josh Staumont followed him and allowed a run on two hits.
-In case you needed another reminder about how good the Los Angeles Dodgers are likely to be this season, they improved to 5-0 in the Cactus League on Tuesday. Shohei Ohtani homered.