Minnesota Twins: Poor Pitching Leads to Series Loss

Minnesota Twins: Afterthoughts. The thoughts and interesting stats from the previous games against the Detroit Tigers.

Back-to-back poor outings by Minnesota Twins starters led to another series loss, this time to the Detroit Tigers.

The first game, the best-played game of the series, the Twins were down 3-0 heading into the bottom of the sixth inning. Justin Verlander started the inning by walking Max Kepler, then Miguel Sano, and finally Joe Mauer to load the bases.

Robbie Grossman put the Twins within one run by driving in Kepler and Sano. Verlander exited the game and two batters later, Jorge Polanco singled, driving in Mauer to tie the game.

The comeback was complete when the next man to bat, Eddie Rosario, hit a three-run home run that put the Twins up 6-3. The Twins eventually won the game by the same score.

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So far a great start to the series. In games two and three, however, Twins starters failed to pitch three complete innings.

In game two, Adalberto Mejia went 2.2 innings allowing five hits and three earned runs. Mejia also walked three while striking out six batters.

The Twins had to use six pitchers out of the bullpen as a result of Mejia’s poor start.

Despite the bad start, the Twins remained in the game until the Tigers scored two runs in the top of the sixth inning.

Even though the Twins, for the most part, had a chance to win, and were a part of a bench-clearing brawl, a lot of fans monitored the Wild playoff game instead.

Kyle Gibson started game three looking to give the Twins a better outing than Mejia’s. Gibson allowed eight hits, seven runs with six of them earned and only pitched 2.2 innings.

Both starters combined to pitch 5.1 innings while allowing 13 hits and nine earned runs. Quite bad. For Gibson, he has a 0-3 record and a 9.00 ERA in four starts. Mejia likewise hasn’t won a game yet and owns a 5.79 ERA.

With Mejia going down to Triple-A Rochester and Gibson struggling, it might be time to either reconsider one or both of their roles with the team as well as throwing Jose Berrios a bone by calling him up.