It’s clear the Twins could use a little offense — the kind provided by injured players such as Byron Buxton and Matt Wallner — because the club has a grand total of eight hits over two games, both losses. They had all of three hits in Sunday’s loss to the Royals and five more in a 7-2 defeat to the Rays in Game 1 of that series. It’s also back-to-back losses for the Twins since the start of May.
It, too, is the Twins’ first leg of their minor league ballpark tour. The Rays are playing their home games at George M. Steinbrenner Field, which has some ridiculous dimensions, and then next week the Twins pay a visit to those West Sacramento A’s or whatever you want to call them. Steinbrenner Field is 318 feet to left, 314 feet to right, deeper in both power alleys and 408 feet to straightaway center.
The Twins and Tampa were scoreless through five innings on Monday, then starter Chris Paddack got into trouble in the sixth and exited the game, leaving two men on for reliever Brock Stewart. Stewart served up a three-run bomb, then reliever Kody Funderburk got rocked for four more runs and that was the game.
Joe Ryan gets the ball Tuesday.
Extra innings…
–Carlos Correa homered in the seventh, his fourth dinger of the season.
–The winning pitcher was ex-Twin Zack Littell, who allowed only one run across six-plus innings. He is now 4-5 on the season with a respectable 3.97 ERA.
–Paddack absorbed the loss to fall to 2-5, although his ERA is also relatively low at 3.92.
–Funny moment in Sunday’s game: It apparently was Minecraft Day at Target Field, which had play-by-play radio voice Kris Atteberry riffing on all things Minecraft. He finally turned to his radio partner Dan Gladden and asked what kind of characters they would be in Minecraft, a question most likely asked to elicit a classic Gladden response.
“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” he said.
I feel you, Danny.
–I have discovered on You Tube old episodes of “This Week in Baseball,” a former must-see program for baseball news and highlights, which was hosted by longtime Yankee voice Mel Allen.
In this particular episode, they revisited a July 11, 1977, game between the Twins and Angels in Anaheim in which Twins manager Gene Mauch, in an effort to prevent the go-ahead and winning run in the 10th inning, went with a five-man infield. Unfortunately, Twins reliever Dave Johnson uncorked a wild pitch and the Halos won anyway, 6-5.
–Although the Twins lost that July 11 contest, the day before they unloaded on the expansion Seattle Mariners, walloping the Tridents 15-0. The 1977 team could hit. They led the American League in team batting average at .282 (!) and runs scored with 867.
Carew was still hitting .400 as noted by the Minneapolis Tribune:
Rod Carew had a bunt single in three official appearances and walked twice to maintain his .401 average in the Twins 85th game of the season Sunday, leaving him behind in his duel, spanning 26 years, with Ted Williams, the last major leaguer to hit .400 in a season. Williams, who hit .406 in 1941, dropped from .412 to .409 in his 85th game that year.