Duffey blows a Smeltzer gem.
It felt like Minnesota had this one, right up until they didn’t. Devin Smeltzer Smeltzed and Dealtzed his way through 7 scoreless innings, acting as some sort of platonic ideal of the AAA call-up pitcher on his way to allowing only 3 Royal base runners. Then along came Tyler Duffey, but we’ll get to him later. Oh we’ll get to him later.
The Twins scored first on back to back singles by Jose Miranda and Ryan Jeffers, scoring Luis Arraez who was on base after fielders choice had him swap places with Gio Urshela. With a runner on 2nd and one out, hindsight shows us the Twins really could have used another run there, but alas. The world is cruel, and baseball crueler still.
The 4th brought the second, and unfortunately final, Twins run when Gilberto Celestino singled in Miranda who was on second due to a lead off single.
Okay now its time to talk about the Duffey in the room. Namely, how he gave up 3 runs in the 8th, causing me to sigh sadly to myself and eat a handful of stress goldfish brand snack crackers. Send me some free crackers, Pepperidge Farms. Make this game mean SOMETHING.
Depressingly, the runs were given up to a guy with the last name Whitt, and a guy with the first name Witt. I don’t have any joke about this, but it feels weird and unsettling in the most Kansas City way possible. Perhaps I, unlike KC, am lacking in wit.
Here comes the Twins in the bottom of the 8th with 3 straight singles, leading to bases loaded and no outs. Unfortunately the bronze age-ancestor of Robert Twins, founder of the Minnesota Twins, was thrice cursed after tricking Yaldabaoth the son of Chaos in a card game, for which he and his line have become cursed to never ever score a run when the bases are loaded, an odd punishment considering baseball wouldn’t be invented for like 5,000 years.
Thus the Twins failed to score. Byron Buxton lead off the bottom of the 9th with an infield single he achieved by running straight out of an 0-26 abyss. This too was a trap, as we can not have nice things. Though the Twins got a runner to 3rd base, they could not bring him home.
I am so sad, I am so very very sad.
STUDS: Smeltzer, Miranda
DUDS: Duffey
So very very sad.
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