The Minnesota Twins lost to the Oakland Athletics by a score of 5-4 thanks to a rare disappointing appearance from Taylor Rogers.
The Minnesota Twins have been struggling lately and not much changed in this one. With Jose Berrios getting the start and pitching a clean 5 and 2/3 innings, it would be the bullpen who once again cost the Twins the game.
With two outs in the bottom of the 7th, Zack Littell would give up back to back homers. If I remember correctly, he was way ahead in the count in at least one of the two at-bats in which he surrendered the dingers. Taylor Rogers tossed quite the dud but when you’re used as often as he is, it’s bound to happen every once in a while.
Twin Takeaway – The good
The Minnesota Twins offense was solid once again this evening as they cranked 3 more homers on the night, all solo shots. Mitch Garver would start things off for the Twinkies with the first solo shot of the night giving the Twins the early 1-0 lead. Two batters later, Nelson Cruz aka “Boomstick”, would clobber a solo shot of his own to dead-center. After a brutal inning by Tyler Duffey and Zack Littell, Sano would launch his solo blast to left to tie the game at 3.
The Twins would pick up one more in the bottom of the 7th thanks to a Jonathan Schoop sacrifice fly to take the lead 4-3. Unfortunately, Rogers wasn’t as clutch as he usually is leading to the Minnesota Twins adding another one to the loss column.
Twin Takeaway – The not-so-good
Jorge Polanco has been struggling mightily. In his past 15 games, he’s batting .239 and has looked lost while at the plate. In the first half of the season, Polanco was arguably having the best at-bats of any player in the league. In his defense, the entire offense has been pretty bad lately with very few exceptions. There have been nice solo performances but nobody seems to want to stay hot. Given his switch-hitting ability and an advanced approach at the plate (usually) I fully expect Polanco to be back on track in no time.
The Twins finish up the 4-game series with the A’s tomorrow as Michael Pineda faces off against Daniel Mengden. Tomorrow’s contest just might be a must-win game with the New York Yankees coming to town on Monday.