The Cruz Schedule Has Been Updated-Nelson Cruz Doesn’t Need Wrist Surgery

Posted on August 13, 2019 by Robb
Minnesota Twins DH Nelson Cruz hurts his left wrist on a swinging strike last Thursday.
Minnesota Twins DH Nelson Cruz doesn’t need surgery on his injured wrist.

The #MNTwins got some good news & some bad news today. We’ll start with the bad news so we can end with some good vibes.

The Cleveland Indians beat the Boston Red Sox in walk-off fashion tonight off the bat of…Carlos Santana and they now lead the American League Central Division by a half-game over our Minnesota Twins.

Man, they are the hottest team in the league right now. When you look back at the beginning of the 2019 season, would you have thought that at separate times of the season, 2 AL Central teams would have the best 1st half and best 2nd half record?

Well, that’s what has happened and it’s good for the division, good for the Indians and good for the Twins. It’s hard to imagine the Twins management and front office staff ever thought it was going to be an easy win in the American League Central. Granted, they knew who was going to be their competition and it looked bleak early in the season for Cleveland but they did build a team that can win and win now.

They are what the Twins are striving for, a perennial playoff contender, and they are getting there. Competition will make this team better. It will show how much fight they have and how good a team they are and how good they can become.

Will the incredible run the Indians are on end at some point? The odds will probably say yes but who knows and, honestly, who cares? The Twins have to handle their business and that’s starts tomorrow night in Milwaukee!

Okay. On to the good news and there’s actually a couple good news items, both involving injured Twins players.

First, Nelson Cruz does not need surgery on his injured wrist and he will begin baseball activities and resume his hitting program tomorrow. Amazingly, after feeling pain on a swinging strike on Thursday and being removed from the game because of it, he woke up on Friday, after being placed on the 10-Day Injured List (IL), without any pain. He said:

“I don’t have any pain. I can grab the bat. It feels good… It looks as if it’ll be good in 10 days.”

That’s Great news for the Twins as Nelson Cruz’s Boomstick was Cruzin’ and having him back in the lineup can only help them in their quest for a division title and a playoff spot.

Second, reliever RHP Sam Dyson threw a successful bullpen session on Sunday and he could be activated tomorrow and be ready to go in Milwaukee.

Let’s see…other news…the 2020 Minnesota Twins Schedule was released today, too.

Dates to watch for:
Opening Day is on March 26th in Oakland and the Home Opener is on April 2nd also against Oakland. Also, the San Francisco Giants, Los Angeles Dodgers & Colorado Rockies will come to town so get those day-off requests in now!
https://www.mlb.com/twins/news/minnesota-twins-2020-schedule-preview

Monthly Schedule: https://www.mlb.com/twins/schedule/2020-03

And last but not least, the Twins #21 Prospect and Cedar Rapids Kernels OF Gilberto Celestino, acquired in the as part of the Ryan Pressly trade, was chosen as one of MLB Pipeline‘s #TopProspectPerformers for yesterday’s games (2-4 w/a HR & 2 RBI) and chosen for their Prospect Team of the Week after hitting .419/.455/.677 (AVG/OBP/SLG) with 5 runs, 2 doubles, 2 home runs, 4 runs batted in and 3 stolen bases with 2 walks and 3 strikeouts in 7 games last week! Congrats…Gilberto!

I mean, that’s just a fun name to say….

GIBLERTOOOOOO CELESTINOOOOO!!!

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Minnesota Twins Recap vs the Cleveland Indians – August 11th, 2019

Posted on August 12, 2019 by Robb
The Minnesota Twins will try to start a winning streak and get a split against the Cleveland Indians after taking a 1-game lead in the American League Central Division. 

The #MNTwins snapped their 4-game losing streak last night with a nice 4-1 win and now have Jose Berrios on the mound to even the series and increase the lead in the Central Division.

The @Indians counter with rookie RHP Aaron Civale who has an ERA & a WHIP of 0.75 going into the game, the 3rd start of his young career.

The game started with the Indians getting a home run off the bat of OF Greg Allen and an RBI-double from Yasiel Puig that scored Carlos Santana, who walked so it was not a good first inning for Twins starter Jose Berrios but…he got better, allowing just 4 hits, 1 walk and 1 run while striking out 3 in the next 5 innings.

The @Twins got a run back in the bottom of the 2nd inning when Luis Arraez, who just keeps hitting and hitting in big situations, hit a sacrifice fly to score Eddie Rosario from 3rd base. Eddie doubled (17) to lead off the inning and then advanced to 3rd on a flyout from Mitch Garver.

The Indians got that run back in the top of the 3rd when Carlos Santana singled in Francisco Lindor, who led off with a double (27) of his own.

The Twins had only 4 hits in the 3rd through the 8th inning as Civale & allowed just 4 hits through the 6th and relievers RHP Nick Goody, LHP Oliver Perez & RHP Adam Cimber allowed just one hit & one walk while striking out 2 in their 2 innings so the Twins would have to try to get something going against Cleveland closer LHP Brad Hand in the bottom of the 9th.

Right-handed Twins relievers Tyler Duffey, Ryne Harper & Trevor May pitched 3 hitless & scoreless innings (just one walk allowed) to get the Twins into a position to come back in the 9th inning.

The bottom of the 9th started with another Eddie Rosario double (18), on the first pitch. Mitch Garver struck out and Luis Arraez came to the plate. He came through in the clutch again, also hitting the first pitch he saw, singling to right field to score Rosie and get the Twins within one.

C.J. Cron then battled through a 10-pitch at-bat to finally single. Arraez advanced to 2nd and Ehire Adrianza came in to pinch-run for Cron at 1st base.

That brought up Marwin Gonzalez. After going down 0-2, he fouled off 2 inside sliders before getting a fastball up in the zone that he liked and he lined it off the left field wall. Arraez scored from 2nd to tie the game and Ehire Adrianza was on his horse and being sent home by 3rd base coach Tony Diaz. 

Cleveland left fielder Tyler Naquin bare-handed the ball off the wall and threw a perfect relay to Francisco Lindor who turned and threw a perfect throw home to gun Adrianza down at home. 2 outs but the game was tied. Schoop grounded out to 3rd to end the inning and send the game into extra innings.

Rocco brought LHP Taylor Rogers in to pitch the 10th and C Kevin Plawecki singled on a just-want-to-make-contact swing for a single down the first baseline. He was then replaced on the bases by OF Oscar Mercado. Francisco Lindor then walked on 4 pitches. Greg Allen was up looking to bunt the runners over and he bunted past a lunging Taylor Rogers for a bunt single that loaded the bases. Carlos Santana then hit a Grand Slam to put the Indians up 7-3 and that was it.

The Twins grounded out 3 times in the bottom of the 10th to end the game and the American League Central is once again tied at the top between these two teams.

There are a lot of people who were criticizing Twins 3B Coach Tony Diaz for sending Adrianza on the Gonzalez double. Watch the highlight. It took a bare-handed play in left field and 2 perfect throws to nab him at home. If either throw is off just a little, Adrianza is probably safe.

You may not get another chance to score the winning run so I don’t blame Tony Diaz for sending him home!

The Twins once again were in a position to win the game. That probably doesn’t mean much right now because they lost but they were right there with a chance and they got that chance with some great at-bats. The hottest team in baseball is getting the breaks and the Twins are not.

That doesn’t mean the Twins can’t get hot in the next 43 games. 

They have tomorrow off before a 2-game series in Milwaukee vs the Brewers then they’ll head to Texas for 4 against the Rangers and come home for 3 against the White Sox & the Tigers.

26 of the remaining 43 games are against Detroit, Chicago & Kansas City and that doesn’t include the 6 games left against these Cleveland Indians (3 here, 3 there) so LET’S GO, TWINS!!!

The stretch run starts on Tuesday in Milwaukee!

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Minnesota Twins Recap vs the Atlanta Braves – August 5th, 2019

Posted on August 5, 2019 by Robb
The Twins will face the National League East-leading Atlanta Braves for 3 games.

The #MNTwins have their work cut out for them for the rest of the homestand as they’ll face the National League East Division-leading Atlanta Braves for 3 games before facing division foe, the Cleveland Indians, for 4 games.

Major League Baseball chose the Players of the Week for both Leagues today and…

They chose Toronto Blue Jays 3B Vladimir Guerrero, Jr over @Twins DH Nelson Cruz. You tell me if they made the right choice:

Guerrero, Jr:
.500/.536/.962 (AVG/OBP/SLG) (13-26) w/3 2Bs, 3 HRs, 11 RBI & 5 Rs w/2 BBs & 2 K in 6 games.

Nelson Cruz:
.500/.600/1.667 (AVG/OBP/SLG) (6-12) w/2 2Bs, 4 HRs, 10 RBI & 5 Rs w/2 BBs & 3 K in 5 games.

What do you think? Less than half the at-bats, all hits were extra-base hits, 1 less run batted in, 2 more home run. Wonder how they choose? Is there a tiebreaker? 

New York Mets RHP Noah Syndergaard was the National League’s Player of the Week.

Alright. On to the game. RHP Jake Odorizzi is on the mound against Braves RHP Mike Soroka for a good pitching duel.

The game went scoreless until the bottom of the 4th with Soroka setting down 11 in a row to begin the game but the Twins then hit 4 straight singles with the last one being a 2-run single with the bases loaded from 2B Luis Arraez to take a 2-0 lead.

The Braves got one of those runs back in the top of the 5th on 1B Freddie Freeman’s 27th HR of the season off the top of the left-field wall.

Max Kepler saw Freeman’s HR and did him one better by going out to center field for his 31st HR of the season. Max Kepler has 31 HOME RUNS!!! WOW!!! Just an awesome season from Max!

Jake Odorizzi had a decent start but his pitch count got high early. He battled through 6 innings and left in line for his 13th win with the score at 3-1 Twins.

RHP Ryne Harper replaced Odo and he struck out the first batter he faced then allowed back-to-back singles. A passed ball in between those hits allowed Ronald Acuna, Jr to advance to 2nd base then score on the Ozzie Albies single to get within 1 run at 3-2. Jake Cave got eaten up by a bad hop on that 2nd single allowing Albies to advance to 2nd. Harper then got Freeman to fly out to left for the 2nd out and was then replaced by Twins manager Rocco Baldelli with RHP Tyler Duffey to face 3B Josh Donaldson and Tyler’s first pitch was a hanging curveball that Donaldson laced to left-center field to tie the game. Duffey got a popout to end the inning but the damage was done and the game was all square at 3 runs apiece.

RHP Trevor May was summoned from the Twins bullpen after not pitching for a couple games since getting a win by throwing 1 pitch in the 1st game against the Kansas City Royals. He walked Adam Duvall to lead off the inning then struck out Matt Joyce because Trevor May Strike You Out. He then induced a 4-6-3 double play to end the 8th inning but…

He came out to pitch the top of the 9th and got Charlie Culberson to line out to center before allowing a single to Ronald Acuna. He then got Ozzie Albies to fly out to center. Acuna tagged up and advanced to 2nd to get into scoring position but Trevor struck out Freddie Freeman to end the 9th on some 98mph High Heat! TREVOR MAY STRIKE YOU OUT!!!

On to the bottom of the 9th we went with Eddie Rosario, Marwin Gonzalez & Luis Arraez due up at the plate.

The Eddie chants slowly grew in volume but he softly grounded out to 1st for the 1st out then Marwin grounded out to 2nd for the 2nd out so it was up to Luis Arraez to make something happen and keep this game from going into extra innings. He blooped a 96mph inside fastball into left field to reach and bring up Ehire Adrianza but Rocco decided to pinch-hit for Ehire with Miguel Sano and give the Twins a chance to end it with his power. 

Sano took the first pitch, a low slider for a called strike, then he got an outside cutter that he liked A LOT because he hit it off the limestone of the facing of the 2nd deck in center field for a Walk-Off HR, his 19th HR of the season, an absolute blast that had an exit velocity of 109mph, a launch angle of 29 degrees, an apex of 96 feet and it traveled 443 feet or….

A SANOOOOOOO-DOUBTERRRRR!!!!

#MNTwins Pitching:
Odorizzi: 6IP 5H 1R/ER 3BB 7K
Harper: 0.2IP 2H 2R 1ER 0BB 1K
Duffey: 0.1IP 1H 0R/ER 0BB 0K
May: 2IP 1H 0R/ER 1BB 2K 1 Win (5-3)

#MNTwins Hitting:
HR-Kepler (31) Sano (19)
Sano-1-1-Walk-Off 2-R HR in the bottom of the 9th!
Arraez-2-4-2-R 1B, R
Rosie/Cruz-1-4-R
Castro-1-3
Marwin-1-4
Adrianza-0-2-BB
Polanco-0-4
Cave-0-3

The Twins will continue this 3-game series against the Atlanta Braves tomorrow night at 7:10pm and it will be Twins RHP Jose Berrios (10-5, 2.80 ERA, 1.10 WHIP) on the mound against Braves RHP Mike Foltynewicz (2-5, 6.37 ERA, 1.42 WHIP) on Fox Sports North.

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Minnesota Twins Recap vs the Kansas City Royals – August 4th, 2019

Posted on August 4, 2019 by Robb
The Twins look for a sweep in Game 3 against the Royals behind LHP Devin Smeltzer.

The Minnesota Twins will look for a sweep today as they’ve pounded Kansas City Royals pitching to the tune of 11 runs in each of the first 2 games of this series.

Some more #Twinsactions to announce first, though:

The Minnesota Twins place RHP Sam Dyson on the 10-Day Injured List (IL) with right biceps tendinitis and recall LHP Devin Smeltzer from AAA Rochester Red Wings to start today’s game.

If you didn’t see it, the Arizona Diamondbacks were beating up on the Washington Nationals last night and, with the Nats giving up so many runs, they decided to put a position player in to pitch in the bottom of the 8th and that pitcher was OF Gerardo Parra. It was 11-4 when he began to pitch but he couldn’t get an out & gave up 5 runs so they called in another position player to relieve him and THAT position player was former Twins 2B Brian Dozier and his battery mate was former Twins C Kurt Suzuki. Dozier gave up a bases-loaded double then got Ketel Marte to fly out and the next batter was former Twins SS/2B/3B/OF Eduardo Escobar and it took just 2 pitches for Esco to go yard for his 24th HR of the season, which is a career high for him. #FogoPower How about that?

Dozier did get a popout and a flyout to end the inning so his ERA is only 18.00. He also has a WHIP of 2.00. He gave up 2 hits in one inning, a double and a HR so he’s just throwing meatballs up there.

We shared it to our Facebook page. Here’s the link (https://bit.ly/2M0uEtM).

Alright, back to the real game, right?

Believe it or not, this game was a pitcher’s duel for the majority of the game. There were only 5 hits through the 1st 5 innings and the first run didn’t score until the bottom of the 6th inning when Luis Arraez, who singled to lead off the inning, advanced to 2nd on a wild pitch then advanced to 3rd on Nelson Cruz’ groundout to 3rd and then scored on Eddie Rosario’s sacrifice fly to right-center field.

Devin Smeltzer pitched 6 scoreless innings allowing just 2 hits & 1 walk while striking out 4. He came out for the 7th and walked the leadoff batter and that’s when Twins manager Rocco Baldelli decided to make a Pitching Change to RHP Tyler Duffey and he struck out Hunter Dozier for his 300th Career Strikeout then got an inning-ending double play on a strike ‘em out, throw ‘em out play getting Jorge Soler at the plate and C Jason Castro got Andrew Gordon at 2nd base!

Jason Castro then doubled the Twins lead on his 11th HR of the season, a solo shot to center field.

RHP Sergio Romo pitched a perfect 8th with one strikeout.

The Twins added a run in the bottom of the 8th when an Eddie Rosario single off the limestone overhang in right field scored Luis Arraez who walked.

Then LHP Taylor Rogers came into the game and got 2 groundouts and a flyout that RF Jake Cave had to dive to catch to end the game to give LHP Devin Smeltzer his 1st MLB Win!!!

Bring Out the Brooms!!! SWEEP!!! SWEEP!!! SWEEP!!!

#MNTwins Pitching:
Smeltzer: 6IP 4H 0R/ER 1BB 4K 1 Win
Duffey: 1IP 0H 0R/ER 0BB 2K
Romo: 1IP 0H 0R/ER 0BB 1K
Rogers: 1IP 0H 0R/ER 0BB 0K 1 Save

#MNTwins Hitting:
Arraez-2-3-BB, 2 R
Rosie-2-3-2 RBI
Castro-HR (11)
Cave-H
Cruz/Kepler-BB, K
Cron/Adrianza-K
Sano-2 K

Some great defense from the middle infield today, too. Adrianza and Arraez made a couple A+ plays.

The Twins will begin a 3-game series against the Atlanta Braves tomorrow night at 7:10pm and it will be RHP Jake Odorizzi (12-5, 3.73 ERA, 1.19 WHIP) against Braves RHP Mike Soroka (10-2, 2.37 ERA, 1.11 WHIP) on Fox Sports North.

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Minnesota Twins Recap vs the Kansas City Royals – August 3rd, 2019

Posted on August 4, 2019 by Robb
The Twins look to continue their winning ways against the Royals.

The #MNTwins had a battle on their hands last night as the Kansas City Royals battled back to tie the game at 6 then got within 2 after the Minnesota Twins made it 11-6 with a 5-run 7th.

Everyone says division games are easy in the American League Central and, yes, the division is weak but they are still games against teams that know you and also want to play spoiler to your good season.

The Twins had RHP Kyle Gibson on the mound tonight against LHP Danny Duffy but first, there were some #Twinsactions made today.

The Twins placed OF Byron Buxton (left shoulder subluxation) & RHP Michael Pineda (right triceps strain) on the 10-Day Injured List (IL) so they recalled OF Jake Cave & RHP Zack Littell from AAA Rochester.

They also activated 1B C.J. Cron off the 10-Day IL after they optioned LHP Lewis Thorpe to AAA last night.

There was another rather big Twinsaction today…

The Twins Inducted RH RP Joe Nathan into the Minnesota Twins Hall of Fame. It’s always fun to see the former players get together to reminisce about the old days. In a fun moment, Joe Nathan had his son Cole throw him the first pitch of the game and his son, before the pitch, , took a deep breath and blew it out his mouth making his lips flutter just like his dad. Dad rose up to applaud his son like, “That’s my boy!” Haha!

Alright, now to the actual Twins Action! See what I did there? Twinsaction to Twins Action because it’s the action of a Twins…NEVERMIND!!!

So…the hottest hitter in the Twins lineup and the hitter that sat out 3 interleague games because he’s a Designated Hitter AND the reigning American League Player of the Week, Nelson Cruz, got the scoring underway with another BOOM as he homered for the 28th time this season to put the Twins up 2-0 (Jorge Polanco walk.) It was an opposite-field home run that landed about 4 runs up and only about 10 feet inside the foul pole so…it was a blast but maybe not the blast we expect from the BoomStick.

But, the big takeaway from it is he’s using the whole field and Twins fans hope another Boomer in Miguel Sano is watching Mr. Cruz very intently and learning that he too can hit the ball out to any part of the field. 

Back to the action. In the top of the 2nd, the Royals cut the lead in half when Jorge Soler hit his 29th HR to the upper deck in left field. They tied the game at 2 later in the 2nd on an RBI single that scored Nicky Lopez, who had reached on a throwing error by 2B Jonathan Schoop.

The Twins responded with 5 runs in the bottom of the 2nd that began with C.J. Cron’s 19th HR of the season, a blast off the limestone in center field above the juniper wall. A Schoop single and a Mitch Garver walk brought Jorge Polanco to the plate and on an 2-0 inside fastball, Jorge turned on it and sent it into the stands in left field for his 17th HR of the season. That brought Nelson Cruz up and he got an 0-2 hanging slider and he launched it into the downtown Minneapolis night for his 2nd HR of the game and his 29th of the season. It went 466-feet into the upper deck in left-center field!

Torii Hunter said Kirby Puckett would call hanging sliders gifts from God and they shouldn’t be missed. That one wasn’t missed! Gift Received!

They then added 2 more runs in both the bottom of the 5th on 2 RBI-singles from Max Kepler & C.J. Cron, and, in the bottom of the 6th…

Luis Arraez singled to lead off the inning. Garver struck out and Polanco lined out to bring Nelson Cruz back to the plate and he got another Gift that he sent out to right field for his 3rd HR of the game and his 30th of the season. He hit 3 HRs in a game for the first time in his 15-year career in Chicago on July 25th. He must’ve enjoyed doing it so much, he did it again just 10 days later. He’s the first player to have multiple 3-homer games after turning 39-years-old.

He did strike out in his 3rd at-bat just so you know they did get him out once.

GEEZ! Someone asked if he might win AL Player of the Week again even though he’s only played in 4 games. I replied with “That could almost work in his favor.” I mean, everyone else played more games and he still had 4 HRs, 2 doubles and 10 RBI in just 9 at-bats! WHAT!

Alright, back to tonight’s game. Kyle Gibson had a very good start, going 6.2 innings and allowing just 4 hits, 2 earned runs (1 unearned) and 2 walks while striking out 6. He did get into trouble in the 7th and had to be pulled, though. The bullpen (Ryne Harper & Cody Stashak) cleaned that up and pitched 2.1 scoreless innings allowing just 1 hit and no walks while striking out 2.

For the most part, it was a good night all around. Should we worry that teams keep coming back or is that something they should expect as the team leading their division?

#MNTwins Pitching:
Gibby: 6.2IP 4H 3R 2ER 2BB 6K 1HR 1 WIN (11)
Harper: 0.1IP
StashaKK: 2IP 1H 0R/ER 0BB 2K

#MNTwins Hitting:
Cruz-3-4-3 HRs (28,29,30) 5 RBI
Cron-3-4-HR (19) R, 2 RBI
#JoPo-3-R HR (17), BB, 2 R
Arraez-2-4-R
Kepler-H, R, RBI
Marwin/Schoop-H, R
Garver-BB, R

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