The Twins aren’t out of this thing just yet.
Check the ledger: Back to back series wins over the Rays and Cubs and a Game 1 win over the Pirates. In fact, the Twins should sweep the Bucs and the terrible Rockies on the other side of the All-Star break to make it a six-game winning streak. That all seems more than feasible to me.
But for the moment the Twins are still a disappointing 46-48, which has moved them into second place in the AL Central, although that’s not saying much when you’re 12.5 games out of first place. Still, the Twins are just 3.5 games back in the wild card race.
Friday’s game was a match up of two All-Stars: The Twins’ Joe Ryan and the Bucs’ Paul Skenes, and Ryan emerged with the 2-1 win to improve to 9-4 on the season with a 2.72 ERA. The talented Skenes, meanwhile, lost his eighth game of the season, despite having a 2.01 ERA. That’s what pitching for the Pirates will do to you.
Ryan gave the Twins five innings, Trevor Larnach hit a 2-run homer, his 13th, and the bullpen held the line with four innings of scoreless relief, including Jhoan Duran’s 15th save of the season.
A starter has not been named for Saturday’s game, which might mean the Twins pair rookie Travis Adams with an opener.
Extra innings…
–The Twins are finding a way to patch together a solution in the face of a decimated pitching rotation. Ryan continues to win, plus I think it’s fair to say that Simeon Woods Richardson and David Festa have done their best to fill in the blanks, but Chris Paddack remains a concern.
Paddack fell to 3-8 on Thursday after he got knocked around pretty good by the Cubs, 8-1. Paddack allowed six runs, all earned, on 11 hits across five innings with a walk and two strikeouts, which is pretty underwhelming. His ERA remains elevated at 4.95. The Twins need a lot more from him to make this work while they wait for Zebby and Pablo to return to the rotation.
–Huge turnout for Friday’s game. More than 40,000 attended the game, likely enticed by the prospect of Ryan vs. Skenes, although at first I thought it was the Byron Buxton bobblehead game. That happens on Saturday. I’d stand in line for his bobblehead.
–Weird night for ex-Twin and reliever Jorge Alcala, who now pitches for the Boston Red Sox. The Sox used an opener and then turned to Alcala, who had to suffer through a fielding error and two passed balls. His final line: three runs on three hits, but no earned runs. The Sox still won 5-4 over the Rays.
–The Rockies might be 50 games under .500, but they edged the Reds 3-2 on Friday. Rockies closer and James Bond villain Victor Vodnik struck out the side in the ninth.