I woke up Saturday morning and nearly spat out my coffee after I learned that Twins starting pitcher Taj Bradley — by far the team’s best pitcher in the early going — had landed on the 15-day injured list.
All you can do is laugh is what I intended to write this evening because the Twins’ injury situation has been downright hard to believe and almost comical in recent seasons.
Instead, I was heartened by what transpired Saturday night as the Twins went toe-to-toe with the Cleveland Guardians for 11 innings and finally emerged with a slightly improbable 2-1 win.
Byron Buxton provided all the offense: a first-inning home run and an 11th inning double while the rest of the team, as noted by The Athletics’ Aaron Gleeman, went 0-for-30 with 15 strikeouts.
And after that first-inning blast, Buck’s 13th of the season, I thought there was no chance, given the wobbly state of the Twins bullpen, that they would be able to shut down the Guardians, but throw in some fine infield defense and that’s exactly what they did.
Starter Joe Ryan, who recently appeared to be headed to the injured list as well, bounced back in a huge way by limiting the Guards to one run across six innings with three walks and five strikeouts on 107 pitches.
Twins Manager Derek Shelton then ran deep on the bullpen, using six relievers (!) across the final five frames of the game. It wasn’t perfect — the bullpen issued six base on balls — but they still blanked the Guards the rest of the way. The win went to Eric Orze and the save to Luis Garcia, his first.
The Twins go for the series win on Sunday. Andrew Morris gets the ball.
Extra innings…
–Saturday night’s Twins win would not have been accomplished without some fine fielding.
Shortstop Brooks Lee made a diving stop of a line drive and also had a hand in the final out of the game as he ranged to his left, then threw hard to first baseman Kody Clemens who dug out the short hop to record the final out.
–Although Buxton, pitching and defense made the win possible, the rest of the lineup wasn’t quite up to the task. The Twins struck out 17 times as a team, including eight whiffs from Josh Bell and Matt Wallner.