Minnesota Twins miss huge opportunity, fall to Tigers in extras
An hour long rain delay allowed the Minnesota Twins to see that a win would get them a mere half-game behind the Houston Astros for the second Wild Card spot, but a battle in extra innings wasn’t enough as they fell to the Detroit Tigers by a score of 7-4 in 12 innings.
Ervin Santana put the Twins in a hole early, but the Twins would battle out of it and so would Santana. Santana went seven innings and only allowed two runs on four hits. The two runs came on a two-run Tyler Collins RBI double in the first, but after that Santana shut the door.
Eddie Rosario put the Twins on the board with a solo homer in the third to make it 2-1. The Twins would take the lead in the seventh with a pair of RBI singles from Torii Hunter and Rosario. After the seventh it was 3-2 Twins.
Kevin Jepsen came in to shut the door in the ninth, but Jepsen, who has been very good since taking over the closer role, blew the save. A Jefry Marte two-run single gave the Tigers the lead again. Trevor Plouffe hit a double in the ninth to tie it up and bring the game to extras.
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Pinch-runners came back to bite the Twins. The Twins sent in some pinch runners in the ninth to try and win, but the bats taken out would have been nice to see in extras. Both Miguel Sano and Trevor Plouffe were pinch run for in the ninth which resulted in Eduardo Nunez and Shane Robinson having to have crucial at bats in the 10th when the Twins got two on and nobody out, but could not convert.
It makes sense to pinch run for Sano in the situation, especially since that Sano is not fully healthy and cannot run at full strength, but also pinch running for Plouffe is questionable. Taking both out takes a whole lot of needed pop out of the Twins lineup.
Brian Duensing came in in the 12th and was an out away from getting out of the inning, but first gave up an RBI single to Ian Kinsler to give the Tigers a 5-4 lead. J.D. Martinez then came up and hit a two-run homer to put the game out of reach.
The game ended as Brian Dozier hit into a double-play.
Again, the Twins missed a huge opportunity to get within a half-game of Houston for the second Wild Card spot. The Twins now welcome the Los Angeles Angels to town for a four-game series. The Twins currently have only a two game lead over the Angels. Don’t look now, but the Cleveland Indians are only 2.5 games behind the Twins.