The Twins made their remaining loyal contingent suffer through a blown lead and another loss in extra frames, as the Angels took the third game of the series.
Walker Jenkins continued his tear, leading off the third inning with a single. This would enable Luke Keaschall to bring him home on a one-out double; Keaschall would then swipe third base (19), in turn enabling him to cross home plate when Austin Martin grounded out to short.
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That 2-0 Twins lead was expanded a bit in the next inning, with Victor Caratini bringing home Brooks Lee with a two-out knock, after Lee had doubled his way onto second base.
The Angels would do their part to make sure most of tonight’s runs were clustered within the middle innings. Joe Ryan, who had kept Los Angeles off the board for the first three frames, coughed up a two-run homer to Jose Siri that brought the Halos to within a run. But noted “noted power hitter” Ryan Kreidler bopped his eighth bopper of the season to snatch the two-run lead right back to lead off the fifth.
Angel starter Reid Detmers and Twins arm Joe Ryan both went five innings, with Ryan giving up two runs on seven hits while Detmers allowed four runs on six hits; both struck out five, and Ryan’s was the only free pass allowed between either starter.
Caratini added another RBI single for an insurance run in the eighth, a decision that revealed itself as quite useful after Yoendrys Gomez let in a pair on a two-run Adam Frazier double in the home eighth, bringing the Angels to within a run. In a titanic battle, Kody Funderburk induced a Mike Trout GIDP to clean up two of Gomez’s inherited runners, and A.J. Minter was tasked with the ninth.
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This did not work out! (A dream ballet ensues, which communicates to the reader that Minter served up a game-tying homer to Vaughn Grissom, knotting the score at 5-5 with one out in the ninth inning.)
So, we snap back to reality with another extra-inning game at Angel Stadium. In the top of the tenth, Brooks Lee moved ghost runner Ben Ross over to third on a first-pitch sacrifice fly. Then, after a sequence that nearly saw two Twins beaned by pitched and fouled balls, Royce Lewis flew into a twin killing, as an up-the-line throw from right fielder Josh Lowe was sent home on a ball shallow enough to still get Ross trying to score from third.
Lowe would lead off the home tenth in one of those quintessential baseball situations, but managed to strike out on a bunt foul off fellow lefty Taylor Rogers, now the sixth Twin reliever in the game. But after some intentional walk and pinch-hitting shuffling, a double steal put the winning run at third and brought Derek Shelton’s infield in.
Thankfully, Taylor Rogers remembered what a great closer he used to be, and struck out two straight Angels to usher the game into its 11th inning, as the clock struck midnight back home in Minnesota. Unthankfully, a word spawned by the constraints of after-midnight blog recap writing, the Twins could not get Royce Lewis’ ghost runner to cross home, and handed the Angels another chance to walk it off.
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Shelton clearly read my Mike Trout walk-off comment from the preview, and he handed Trout first base to start the home 11th. Wade Meckler committed one of those Manfred-era cardinal sins, flying out on the first pitch he saw and failing to advance either of Los Angeles’ free runners, but Rogers would hit Grissom to load the bases with one out and move the winning run to third anyway.
With the bases loaded and one out, Jenkins moved in from center to help form a five-man infield. Rogers got another big-money strikeout, then fell victim to Lady Luck; a first-pitch sharp grounder from Christian Moore doinked off Rogers’ body and dripped away into no-man’s-land, bringing the winning run across before anyone had a chance to reach it.
So, the Twins give away a late 5-2 lead to the Angels, leading to the second walk-off loss to the Halos in three days (or four, if you’re counting from somewhere in the country that does not reside on the west coast.) The best Minnesota can do is even the series, and due to tiebreakers, the Chicago White Sox can officially eliminate both the Detroit Tigers and the Twins with a single win tomorrow. Joy!
STUDS:
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RP Taylor Rogers (1.2 IP, H, R, 2 BB, 4 K)
1B Victor Caratini (2-for-5, 2 RBI)
CF Walker Jenkins (2-for-4, R, BB)
DUDS:
RP Yoendrys Gomez (0.1 IP, 2 H, 2 ER, 2 BB, K)
RP A.J. Minter (IP, H, ER, HR)
C Ryan Jeffers (0-for-5)
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