Another Thursday of Blog Lord game coverage, another coveted reverse jinx. I fixed Kody Clemens a couple weeks ago, and now hopefully the same can be said for Zebby Matthews after he delivered the best start of his career.
This Miami lineup is sneakily talented, but you wouldn’t know it if you only watched this series opener (Ober 89 pitch Maddux) and closer. Matthews cruised through the seven innings, allowing just four hits and one walk while racking up five strikeouts and nine roundball outs. For a guy with home run issues like Zebby, that last number is particularly encouraging.
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The only real threat the Marlins put together came in the very first inning. Back-to-back singles from Liam Hicks and Otto Lopez put two runners on for the middle of the lineup, but Matthews quickly retired the next two batters to escape the jam. From there, everything was on cruise control. Following the two first inning singles, Zebby retired 19 of 22 batters he faced and not a single one reached second base. All said and done: seven shutout innings on just 83 pitches. That’s how you save the bullpen after last night’s SWR disaster-class.
On the offensive side, things got off to an inauspicious start for the hometown nine. The first three Twins batters reached base to load ‘em up with no outs, but lefty Braxton Garrett struck out Josh Bell, Victor Caratini, and Luke Keaschall for a good old fashioned Twins NOBLETIGER.
The first three batters reached AGAIN to start the second, but Austin Martin made sure not to waste it this time. A ground rule double broke the seal and plated the first two Twins run of the afternoon. Bell and Caratini each redeemed themselves in the inning as well, with a Bell double scoring two more and a well-placed groundout allowing Minnesota’s fifth run of the inning to come in. 5-0 Twins after two.
A James Outman RBI single scored one more for the good guys in the third, but things went very quiet for the bats until the eighth inning after Miami finally scratched one across home. After 13 straight Twins outs, Luke Keaschall hit a one-out single. A two out walk brought up Outman, who again delivered an RBI hit, this time a double that scored Keaschall and Ryan Kreidler. Austin Martin followed with his second hit of the day for good measure to make it 9-1.
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Game, series, match. We’ll see you tomorrow night for the border battle with the Milwaukee Brewers.
Thanks to the relative mid-ness of the entire American League outside of Tampa and New York, the Twins (at 20-24) sit just 3.5 games out of the division and 1.5 games out of a wild card spot a quarter of the way to the season. The competition is talented and won’t stay down forever, but the bullpen has been significantly better in recent weeks with some young additions and the Twins are right in the thick of things. Better yet, the team should start looking even better over the next few weeks as Taj Bradley, Mick Abel, Cole Sands, and Alan Roden start to work their ways back. Plus, they have 4-5 top 100 prospects on the doorstep that still should contribute at some point this season.
Don’t count this group out quite yet!
STUDS
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Zebby Matthews: 7 IP, 0 R, 4 H, BB, 5 K, just 83 pitches
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Greatest Twin of All Time Ryan Kreidler: 2-3, BB, 2 R
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Austin Martin: 2-4, R, 2B, BB, R, 3 RBI
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James Outman???: 2-3, 2B, BB, 2 R, 3 RBI
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DUDS
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One small dud for Matt Wallner for getting demoted but the past two times that’s happened he’s come back and been the Twins’ best hitter. Let’s do that a third time.
Comment of the game goes to SooFoo for correctly identifying the Byron Buxton injury cause.
