3 Twins that deserve blame after 9-1 loss to Astros in ALDS Game 3
It was a bad afternoon of baseball all around for the Twins on Tuesday.
Tuesday could not have gone worse for the Minnesota Twins. After a convincing win in Game 2 on Sunday, one that had experts starting to put some respect on their name, the Twins bottomed out hard in Game 3.
Minnesota got obliterated by Houston, losing 9-1 and now facing back-to-back must-win games. It was a bad loss, but hopefully not the kind that zaps all of the budding confidence the team has shown through its otherwise spectacular postseason run.
As great as the Twins have looked, its biggest weakness were exposed by Houston in Game 3. Sonny Gray gave up a quick four runs and the Twins bats went silent in ways that harkened back to struggles earlier in the season. Runners were left stranded, the bullpen imploded, even the shadows and mother nature seemed to be against the Twins.
The series isn't over, but there's cause for concern with how Minnesota lost. In Game 1, the team battled back to score four runs in the seventh inning to start building momentum that carried into the next game. That didn't happen in Game 3, which was a total ass kicking from start to finish.
Here's some silver lining: Minnesota can send the series back to Houston with a win in Game 4, something that could inspire the sort of momentum shift we saw in the first two games. Sending the series back to Houston off a win rather than a loss seemed like the ideal situation from the start, but now it's the only option the Twins have and some things need to be fixed if that's going to happen.
3 Twins that deserve blame after 6-1 loss to Astros
Alex Kirilloff
There were plenty of things that went wrong for the Twins in Game 3, but a lot of fingers will be pointed at Alex Kirilloff. He's had a brutal postseason at the plate and in the field, something that reared its frustrating head on Tuesday afternoon.
Minnesota quickly fell into a 4-0 hole in the first inning, partially due to a bad play from Kirilloff. Yordan Alvarez hit a ball toward first that Kiriloff misplayed, turning what could have been a double play into a one-out double. Had he made that play, the inning would have ended and the Twins would have escaped with the game still scoreless.
Sonny Gray deserves blame for serving up the sweeper that Abreu tattooed but had Kirilloff not committed an error, a four-run lead might not have been on the board and the wind might not have been sucked out of the team's sail so early.
Kirilloff didn't help his case at the plate, either. The lefty went 0-for-2 with a strikeout and is now 0-for-7 in the postseason.
Sonny Gray
The sun was shining at Target Field on Tuesday but everything was gray in the worst way for the Twins. It was just a flat-out bad day for Sonny Gray, who fell behind before he could even get settled on the mound and ended up getting chased before he could finish four innings of work.
It was the second shortest outing of the season for Gray and it came at the worst possible time. Some fans pointed to the shadows and how they played a role in the Twins hitters being unable to see Cristian Javier's pitches, but Astros batters had no problem seeing what Gray was throwing to them.
What they saw were a ton of sweeper, which looked great when it was working:
Sonny Gray, 84mph Sweeper and 94mph Two Seamer, Individual Pitches + Overlay. pic.twitter.com/70ILougmo8
— Rob Friedman (@PitchingNinja) October 10, 2023
Gray's over-reliance on it, and stubborn reluctance to pivot away from it once he started getting tagged, ended up being his undoing. His day was essentially over before it had a chance to start, with the Astros jumping all over Gray for four runs in the first inning.
More than once Adam Wainwright pointed out mistakes Gray was making with his pitches, including a a sweeper he left hanging that Jose Aberu destroyed for a three-run homer. It was that kind of day for Gray, and it ended up putting the Twins in a hole they couldn't climb out of.
The top of the order
It was a really bad day for the Twins best hitters, who went ice cold at the worst possible time.
Minnesota has struggled all postseason with RISP, but they were particularly awful in Game 3 and a lot of that had to do with the top of the order's inability to put the ball in play. The Twins went 1-for-9 with runners in scoring position, only managing to get a run on the board after Houston had turned to its bullpen.
Side note: Minnesota being able to get to the Astros bullpen is actually an encouraging sign, but it was once again too little too late.
Two specific moments of the Twins best hitters coming up empty stood out as particularly frustrating in Game 3.
In the bottom of the third, with two on and no outs, Jorge Polanco, Max Kepler, and Royce Lewis all went down in order. It was once again an instance of the Twins leaving runners stranded in scoring position, but it also squandered an early opportunity to chip away at a 4-0 deficit and start to steal some momentum back from Houston.
Later in the fifth inning, the Twins loaded the bases with one out only to watch Kepler strike out looking and Lewis get sent down swinging at a pitch way outside of the zone. The crowd had come back to life throughout the course of this mini-rally but were left holding an empty bag after getting silenced by their own offense.
ICE IN HIS VEINS ❄️
— FOX Sports: MLB (@MLBONFOX) October 10, 2023
Cristian Javier gets out of a bases loaded jam!!
📺: FOX pic.twitter.com/JVpSDedZM2
Minnesota's offense had been clicking over the last two games, with the four-run rally in Game 1 creating momentum that carried over to a six-run game on Sunday night. All of that mojo went away on Tuesday, as the team's best hitters failed to produce.
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