The Twins rallied, but the San Diego Padres rallied even harder on Tuesday to scoot past Minnesota for the 7-5 win and series win.
The Cleveland Guardians outlasted the Yankees with a 6-run 12th inning the same day, but the Kansas City Royals lost, so the Twins and Royals remain tied at 70-56, 3.5 games back of the Guards in the division.
The Twins had no business losing to the Friars. Bailey Ober served up a game-tying home run, but the Twins came right back to take a 5-3 lead in the top of the eighth inning. Manager Rocco Baldelli then called for lefty Steven Okert and he was terrible, allowing four runs on four hits, including a home run, in the home half of the inning.
Two ex-Twins played a key role in San Diego’s win. Donovan Solano singled, Luis Arraez cracked a hit to the opposite field and then Jurickson Profar cranked a three-run job out of the ballpark for the 6-5 lead. Twins reliever Ronny Henriquez coughed up an additional hit, but that run was charged to Okert. Okert was tagged with the loss and blown save, his sixth of the season. Six blown saves? Not sure how much longer the Twins are going to hang onto that guy.
Simeon Woods Richardson gets the ball Wednesday.
Extra innings…
-Ryan Jeffers hit his 20th home run.
-Ober made another quality start, although he did not figure in the decision. He allowed three runs on four hits across six innings with no walks and five strikeouts.
-I recently received some old Minnesota Twins postcards I had purchased years ago — postcards of the 1983 team, a team that wasn’t as bad as the 102-loss ’82 team, but it also wasn’t that much better.
Among them was one of a young Frank Viola, who was in his second season pitching for the Twins. He struggled as a rookie and he would struggle again in ’83 with a 7-15 record and a 5.49 ERA, although he tossed 210 innings.
But once he added the change up to his repertoire of pitches, a pitch I think he was taught by Twins pitching coach and 1955 World Series hero Johnny Podres, he was a new man. Viola would go on to have season win totals of 18, 18, 16, 17 and finally 24 wins and a CY Young nod in 1988.
Sweet Music would pitch for 15 seasons, compiling a record of 176-150 with a 3.73 ERA.