Houston Astros Go Airborne On The Minnesota Twins
Credit: Bruce Kluckhohn-USA TODAY Sports
The thing about a rain delay that is in place due to a predicted storm is that sometimes that rain doesn’t come and you waste an hour of everybody’s lives. Maybe calling it a waste is strong since I’m sure beer sales went through the roof. I get playing it safe, but playing it safe and sticking to the old reliable is what the Twins do best.
First pitch was pushed back to 8:30, for a rain delay of 1:30. Phil Hughes was on the mound and struggled more than we are no accustomed to in Minnesota. Hughes went six innings and had five strikeouts, but gave up six runs on six hits with three of them being homers. When the Astros made contact, they made it count.
Marwin Gonzalez hit a solo homer in the third and Matt Dominguez hit one in the fourth to start the scoring for Houston. The Astros added three runs to their lead in the thanks. Jose Altuve hit an RBI single that scored Dexter Fowler after Fowler tripled to right field where Jason Kubel literally had a hard time picking up the ball. George Springer hit a two-run homer later in the inning to give Houston a 5-0 lead and it looked like what was already a long night was going to be even longer.
But the plucky Twins made a game out of it with some runs in the late innings. The Twins cut the lead to two in the seventh thanks to the speed demons. Aaron Hicks hit an RBI double to score Eduardo Escobar to start the scoring. Danny Santana then hit a two-run homer to get the Twins back into the game. The dinger was the first for Santana at the MLB level.
The Twins added another run in the eighth thanks to an Eduardo Escobar double, but couldn’t get any more runs and fell to Houston, 5-4. The Twins even pinch hit Oswaldo Arcia who hurt his ankle in Thursday night’s game for Aaron Hicks in the eighth, but he popped out to center. Arcia’s pinch hit forced Manager Gardenhire to move Danny Santana, who was the designated hitter for some reason, to centerfield for the ninth. In this move Gardy’s worst fear occurred, he lost the DH. The pitcher spot wouldn’t have come up for a while though.
Dallas Keuchel started for the Astros and pitched six shutout innings giving up five hits while striking out six. The Twins scored three off of Tony Sipp and one off of Jerome Williams.
Brian Duensing pitched an inning and Matt Guerrier pitch two out of the bullpen for the Twins.
Eduardo Escobar had two doubles in the game. Trevor Plouffe, Aaron Hicks and Kurt Suzuki all had one double.
Boxscore for the contest can be found here.
The Twins and Astros continue their series on Saturday. First pitch is scheduled for 1:10.