After three terrible losses — the embarrassing collapse against the Houston Astros, the ridiculous pitch timer violation called on Simeon Woods Richardson and the lousy fielding on display Tuesday — the Twins finally righted the ship with some quality pitching and timely hitting to shut out the Kansas City Royals 4-0 on Wednesday.
Starter Joe Ryan blanked the Royals on two hits across seven innings, while the lineup backed him with just enough juice: two RBI singles and two home runs. The Twins are now 4-8 on the season, which isn’t great, but it feels a hell of a lot better than 3-9.
“The kind of outing we really needed,” said manager Rocco Baldelli to MLB.com about Ryan. “And we got two great starting pitching outings. Pablo (Lopez) got cut short yesterday, but the way those two guys have responded, coming back right now and giving us real chances to win, I mean, it’s about as dominant as you can ask for from Joe Ryan tonight.”
After Ryan exited, reliever Griffin Jax got the ball and he caught a break as well, pitching a scoreless inning with no damage done. It felt like redemption because he blew the save on Sunday versus the Astros and committed one of three errors in the 2-1 loss to the Royals on Tuesday.
The Twins will now try to earn a split of the four-game series on Thursday. Bailey Ober gets the ball.
Extra innings…
-Free agent Ty France went 3-for-4 with a run scored and drove in two of the team’s four runs. Matt Wallner homered and Eddie Julien cracked an RBI single.
-The defense wasn’t great on Tuesday, but it was much improved in Wednesday’s win. Willi Castro made a great play at third base to throw out a runner hustling down the first base line and outfielder Harrison Bader threw out a runner at second base. I think the verdict is still out on whether Bader will hit this season, but there’s no question about his fielding. The dude can flash the leather.
-Funny moment in the radio booth on Tuesday. Kris Atteberry and Paul Molitor began to express some frustration with home plate umpire Nick Mahrley and his strike zone. Both dugouts began to chirp about it as well, which finally prompted Molitor to say: “I think Nick Mahrley has been hanging out with Bob Marley.”
-I always like to keep an eye on how ex-Twin Jose Berrios is doing because he was one of my favorite players when he was in Minnesota. Well, “The Machine” is all right. He went into Fenway Park on Monday and allowed just a run over seven innings to earn win No. 100. Congrats, Jose.