No Royce Lewis, no Ryan Jeffers (a bigger problem, of course) and a number of other team moves have temporarily remade the Twins for the short term, although they didn’t exactly roar out of the dugout on Tuesday and set the world on fire.
Byron Buxton and Josh Bell certainly tried, however. They accounted for five of the Twins’ eight hits, but they didn’t get much help from the rest of the lineup, and the Twins went on to lose 2-1, yet another one-run loss.
Starter Zebby Matthews took the tough-luck loss in this one. He served up a first-inning, two-run dinger and that was it. Despite the loss, he delivered a quality start, allowing just the two runs on five hits across six innings with no walks and six strikeouts. He falls to 1-1 with a 1.38 ERA. Hard to find fault with his effort.
The offense went missing in this game.
The team was 1-for-7 with runners in scoring position and stranded nine runners. Again, Buck and Bell combined for five hits, but the rest of the lineup chipped in with only three additional hits. One encouraging sign: new callup Orlando Arcia had one of those hits.
The Twins go for the series win on Wednesday. Joe Ryan gets the ball.
Extra innings…
–The Twins are 22-27. They are 4-7 in one-run games.
–More on the notable moves: Third baseman Lewis, who had been struggling mightily at the plate, has been sent down to the minors; catcher Jeffers broke a bone in his left hand; reliever Justin Topa was designated for assignment; and Arcia, who has major league experience and hit well at Triple-A St. Paul, was called up.
–Another callup — reliever Travis Adams — combined with fellow reliever Anthony Banda to give the Twins three scoreless innings after Zebby’s exit in the 6th.