After exciting rookie Kendry Rojas got scratched from his start with elbow soreness (sigh), Simeon Woods Richardson (sigh, again) stepped in for a spot start which went about as well as expected. Also bad for the Twins, they were facing current AL Cy Young candidate Davis Martin (triple sigh). Let’s get into it.
Woods Richardson got some hopes up, but almost immediately lost the faith of Twins fans and coaches alike. He struck out the first two batters of the game before walking Miguel Vargas, allowing
him to steal second, and then scoring on a Colson Montgomery single. SWR then allowed a double to start the second inning, but escaped scoreless thanks to a nice throw home from Tristan Gray with the contact play on. Then, things really fell apart.
With two outs and a runner on in the third inning, Sim allowed the next five batters to reach base, culminating in a bases-clearing double from 4,000 year old (pretty sure, don’t fact check me) Randal Grichuk to put the White Sox up 5-0. Wanting to limit the damage, the Twins turned to Andrew Morris who finally ended the inning and allowed everyone to move on with their day.
I would now like to gripe about the worst scoring rule in baseball. The concept of runs being earned vs unearned is, in essence, completely up to the official scorer. It’s what makes ERA less predictive of future performance compared to FIP or xERA, and is somewhat a relic of a past era. However, ERA is still important given it’s historical significance and as such, these rules do carry a lot of weight. A pitcher shouldn’t be punished for a bad defense, but what if the bad defense was from the pitcher himself?
All this is to say that the run Andrew Morris allowed should have been an earned run because the error was committed by Morris. If he didn’t earn that run, then who did? Pete Maki? Tom Pohlad? God? Please get back to me soon, Mr. Manfred. My family is starving and I cannot rest until this quandary is resolved. I’m just a man standing in front of an MLB commissioner asking him to artificially raise Andrew Morris’ ERA.
Anyway, the bullpen was actually nails the whole way, which was nice to see after Woods Richardson’s awful start. Morris, Travis Adams, Taylor Rogers, Anthony Banda, and Yoendrys Gomez combined to throw 5.1 innings while allowing no earned runs (though an unholy unearned one) and just four baserunners, and two of those from Morris.
Unfortunately for Adams, he was optioned after this game with Minnesota in need of a fresh arm. The Twins will likely need two pitchers with Rojas likely ending up on the IL as well. A corresponding move has yet to be announced, but Kody Funderburk and John Klein are healthy and on the 40-man, though neither has been particularly sharp of late. Cody Laweryson appears to be near the end of a rehab assignment, though his results have been less than encouraging as well. We could be in line for Marco Raya’s debut as he has been very good in May.
And, as you know by now, we’re taking detours to bad relief options and inane scoring rules because the Twins offense didn’t have almost anything to give this afternoon. The Twins finally got a second run after Martin left the game in the seventh inning, but were never able to get a big inning in this game or really any point this series. Minnesota never had more than one hit in an inning in this game, which simply won’t cut it.
The Twins lost the series 1-3, with two of those losses being very winnable. The non-SWR pitchers stepped up in a tough spot, but the lineup is missing some juice with Ryan Jeffers’ injury and Royce Lewis’ and Matt Wallner’s overdue demotions. The Twins need someone to step up alongside Buxton and there’s lots of talent to do that still.
STUDS
- The bullpen (Morris, Adams, Rogers, Banda, Gomez): 5.1 IP, 3 H, 1 R (o ER), 1 BB, 6 K
- Tristan Gray: 2-4, 2B, SB
DUDS
- Simeon Woods Richardson: 2.2 IP, 5 H, 5 R, 3 BB, 4 K; moves to 0-7 with a 7.74 ERA on the season
- Middle of the lineup (Lee, Larnach, Clemens): 0-12
- Every hitter: 0-6 RISP
