Bad pitching and defense doomed the Twins tonight.
Brooks Lee provided all of the runs for the Twins tonight. In the 5th, with the Twins down 5-0, he hit an RBI single to score Christian Vazquez. In the 7th, he hit a 2-run homer to bring the score to 6-3. In the bottom of the 9th, he hit another 2-run homer to make it an 8-5 Red Sox lead. Lee had entered the game for Carlos Correa, who left the game after feeling light headed.
As you can see, all of that wasn’t enough, as the Red Sox were able to put together 8 runs tonight. Four of those came in the 3rd inning. With 1 out, Ceddanne Rafaela tripled, then Roman Anthony singled to bring in the first run. Alex Bregman then doubled to left, and an error by Willi Castro allowed Anthony to score. Later, Trevor Story hit a 2-run homer to left-center.
That spelled the end for Pierson Ohl, who was making his first career start tonight after getting called up to replace Chris Paddack. He went 3 innings, gave up 5 hits, 4 runs, and struck out 4.
In the top of the 5th, Jarren Duran hit a solo homer to score the 5th Red Sox run. Rafaela hit a sacrifice fly in the 6th to tack on another run.
In the top of the 8th, Bregman reached on a fielding error by Royce Lewis, then Story and Abreu doubled to score 2 more runs.
Brooks Lee made a valiant effort tonight, driving in all 5 runs for us, but the pitching and defense from the team just wasn’t good enough. They’ll have to try again tomorrow to win their first series since the All Star break.
Studs:
Brooks Lee: 3-4, 2 HR, 5 RBI.
Cole Sands: 1.0 IP, 0 H, 0 R, only Twins pitcher to not give up a run tonight.
Duds:
Pierson Ohl: 3.0 IP, 5 H, 4 ER, BB, 4 K, 1 HR
Kody Funderburk: 2 IP, 2 H, ER, 2 BB, K
Willi Castro: 0-5, 3 K, Error