The bad news rolls on for the Twins as they lost their sixth straight game on Wednesday, a ridiculous, rain-shortened affair won by the Cincinnati Reds, 4-2.
Why ridiculous? The actual time of the game was just a hair over 90 minutes, while the rain delays totaled three hours. The game was finally called in the sixth inning.
It never should’ve been played. Rain on Wednesday washed out games between the Bucs and Tigers, Cards and South Siders, Brewers and Cubs — as you can see, all games in the same geographic area — and yet somehow Major League Baseball wanted to squeeze in Twins, Reds. Whatever.
Byron Buxton hit the first pitch of the game for a home run, but the 1-0 lead didn’t last long because former Twins prospect and Oregon man Spencer Steer hit a two-run shot in the bottom of the first inning and the Reds never looked back.
Starter Bailey Ober absorbed the loss, although it was an improvement over his last outing. The big man went five-plus innings. He allowed four runs on nine hits, with no walks and five strikeouts.
The Twins will try to avoid being swept again. Chris Paddack gets the ball Thursday.
Extra innings…
–The Twins are 36-37.
–The good news, of course, is that Brooks Lee, the Twins’ switch-hitting infielder, collected one more hit on Wednesday to extend his hitting streak to 17 games.
–Buck’s home run was his team-leading 13th. He leads the team in a number of offensive categories, including RBI (43), runs (41), stolen bases (12) and slugging percentage (.524).
–But a lot of team numbers are not good: The Twins’ run differential has fallen to a plus-4, they are 10.5 games out of first place and they are 16-25 against teams with records better than .500.
–The Twins lost 6-5 to the Reds on Tuesday after starter David Festa did not pitch well. He needed 81 pitches to get through three-plus innings, allowing four runs (two earned) on two hits, but he also issued three walks and fanned four.
The Slim Reaper did not record a decision, but the early exit meant that the team needed to lean on five relievers. The Reds finally got to Brock Stewart, who was tagged with the blown save and loss in the sixth inning.
In the ninth inning, the Twins put two men on against former Twins reliever Emilio Pagan, but Pagan induced a pop up and struck out Matt Wallner and Christian Vazquez to lock down his 17th save.
–The Twins are a terrible 7-13 in one-run games.