Offensively or defensively, it’s always good to have Byron Buxton in the lineup. And on Tuesday, he played the much-needed hero this team so desperately needs, connecting for two home runs and driving in three more to power the Twins to a 10-0 win over the Washington Nationals.
More important: the seven-game losing streak is dead. The Twins were 24-16 on May 12 and had fallen to 24-23 before Tuesday’s win. Let’s hope another winning streak is about to begin.
The Twins also got a huge lift from the pitching staff after they got knocked around on Monday. Joe Ryan blanked the Nats on three hits, reliever Griffin Jax struck out the side in the eighth and Josh Staumont closed out the game with a walk and a whiff.
The Twins scored their 10 runs on 10 hits. In a different era of baseball, Willi Castro might have been benched for his recent miscues in the field, but there’s no denying that he has had one of the hotter bats in the lineup, and that continued Tuesday. Castro homered, scored two runs, drove in two more and walked. He’s hitting .267.
“There was positive, super productive baseball being played everywhere you looked tonight,” Twins Manager Rocco Baldelli told MLB.com. “All over the lineup, we had great at-bats. From the start of the game, even in the first inning, just seeing the way the at-bats played out, that’s what we want.”
Simeon Woods Richardson gets the ball Wednesday.
Extra innings…
-Tuesday’s win was the 400th for Baldelli, who has been at the helm since 2019.
-Starter Pablo Lopez got roughed up in Monday’s 12-3 loss. He allowed seven runs on eight hits, including two home runs, across five innings. He is now a very pedestrian 4-4 with a 4.72 ERA.
-The Twins suffered through a 14-game skid in 1982, the year the team lost 102 games. That ugly streak was finally snapped with a 6-0 win over the Baltimore Orioles on June 4 before 8,500 fans at the Metrodome.
Current Angels manager Ron Washington, who spent six of his 10 major league seasons with the Twins, had three hits in the win, including a home run. On the mound, Brad Havens scattered five hits over five-plus innings and Terry Felton went three-plus innings in long relief with three walks and six strikeouts.
The Minneapolis Tribune lede:
“It’s over.”
The Baltimore Sun on the O’s loss:
“Logic suggested that the Orioles would ‘get well’ during a stretch that included nothing except games against the American League’s have-nots, Toronto, Texas, Seattle and Minnesota. Instead, Baltimore’s perennial contender is still floundering, groping for a positive identity after incurring another defeat, the fourth in the last five games, last night against the Twins, the most downtrodden of them all.”
Sources: Baseball-Reference.com, Newspapers.com