Someone once said that baseball success begins with the guy on the mound.
Not sure that’s entirely true (or if it was ever said), but for the moment it appears to stick because after the Twins suffered their way through most of June, they suddenly find themselves with a three-game winning streak.
And look how it happened: they got another great start out of Joe Ryan, an improved effort out of Simeon Woods Richardson and then the biggest surprise of all — David Festa beating the Detroit Tigers, one of the best teams in baseball, on the road in Motown Friday night.
Festa, looking more like the Slim Reaper he claims to be, allowed just two hits across five-plus innings with no walks and six strikeouts in the 4-1 Twins win. Reliever Griffin Jax served up a run on three hits, but he also came back to strike out the side in the eighth inning. Jhoan Duran closed out the game for this 12th save.
Twins pitching held the line and the offense did just enough, including Byron Buxton, who hit his team-leading 18th home run. They also got a two-RBI night from Brooks Lee and an RBI sacrifice bunt from Willi Castro.
Bailey Ober gets the ball Saturday. If anyone needed a good outing on this Twins team, it’s him.
Extra innings…
–The Twins are 40-42. The road back to a winning record begins now.
–SWR picked up the win in the Twins’ 10-1 beat down of the M’s on Thursday. SWR, similar to Festa’s outing on Friday, allowed just two hits across five innings with a walk and six strikeouts.
–The Tigers are 51-32 and remain 9.5 games up on the Cleveland Guardians in the AL Central. Can you name a single player on that team? Pitcher Tarik Skubal comes to mind, but after that it’s mostly a mystery. I look at the lineup and my reaction is, “Who are these guys?” It says a lot about the job manager A.J. Hinch has done.
–A number of ex-Twins and former Twins prospects had good nights on Friday:
- The Blue Jays’ Jose Berrios, who was drafted by the Twins and spent six seasons with the club, carved up a fading Boston Red Sox team 9-0, scattering four hits across seven shutout innings with a walk and eight strikeouts.
- The Cardinals’ Sonny Gray, who spent two seasons with the Twins, turned in a rare complete game 1-hitter with 11 strikeouts in a 5-0 win over the Guards.
- Former Twins prospect Spencer Steer, now with the Reds, hit three home runs, scored three runs and drove in four more in Cincy’s 8-1 over the Padres.
- Max Kepler, who spent 10 seasons in Minnesota, had two hits, an RBI and a walk in the Phillies’ 13-0 thrashing of the Braves.
- Catcher Gary Sanchez, who spent a season with the Twins, had four hits, including a home run, in the Orioles’ 22-8 win over the Rays.
–Another note about that Orioles game: The Birds were losing 6-0, then reeled off 22 runs, including 17 runs from the fifth through ninth innings.