What do we know about these 2024 Minnesota Twins? That the wins and losses come in bunches.
Fresh off a six-game winning streak, the Twins have now lost three straight. They dropped a series at home to the Tampa Bay Rays and on Friday they lost Game 1 of a three-game set on the road at Oakland, 6-5. It also was their third straight one-run loss.
The Twins scored first, the A’s came right back to tie the game, and then the Twins fell behind before Willi Castro hit a three-run jolt to give Minnesota a 5-4 edge. But closer Jhoan Duran couldn’t hold the line and served up another home run, absorbing both the blown save and loss.
They will try again tomorrow. Bailey Ober gets the ball.
Extra innings…
-Other than Jorge Alcala, Twins pitching wasn’t real sharp. Starter Chris Paddack allowed three runs across four-plus innings on 82 pitches, which included three walks, and reliever Kody Funderburk also got tagged with an earned run on two hits.
-Royce Lewis hit his 10th home run on Friday — his 10th dinger in 16 games, which is the fastest ever for a Twins player to reach that mark. But here’s the problem: those dingers aren’t going to mean much if this team doesn’t win. I’d hate to see a repeat of the 42 meaningless home runs hit by Brian Dozier in 2016, a season in which the Twins lost 103 games.
-Rookie Austin Martin had another two-hit game, but he also was caught stealing and got picked off.
-Despite the recent one-run losses, the Twins have been pretty strong in those contests. They are now 14-8 in one-run games, according to Baseball-Reference.com.
-As I like to say, “You never know when you’re going to have a Minnesota Twins moment.” Well, how about a Minnesota moment?
Me and my son played golf on Friday, including a couple of holes with a young man from Minnesota, who finally caught up with us on the course. We learned he was a recent graduate from the University of Wisconsin at Madison and was driving around the country before heading to Denver to start a new job. He also was a former quarterback for the University of St. Thomas “Tommies” in the Twin Cities before he got injured and transferred schools. Congrats and good luck to him.