1 week Ago
David Festa joined the Twins on Friday and though he allowed only one run in nearly five innings of work, he’s probably headed back to St. Paul this weekend. But no, not because the Twins are afraid he’ll become infected by whatever ails this tortured team.
Once Festa was removed, reliever Jorge Alcalá allowed four runs without recording an out, and the Twins lost for the fifth time in six games, 7-5 to the Tigers. That two-run margin, in case you were wondering, matches the number of unearned runs the Twins allowed on unforced errors. Festa’s success became just the latest performance to be wasted, a list that on this night included the Twins’ biggest inning (three runs) since Sunday, Edouard Julien’s first two-hit game of the season, Byron Buxton’s second home run, and Ty France’s fourth RBI in three games.
It all added up to the Twins’ 10th loss in the season’s first 14 games; only once, with a 3-11 start to the 1981 season, have the Twins won less often this early. Amid the gloom, not to mention all the empty seats around the gathering of 12,900 at Target Field, it might be easy to overlook Festa’s debut, a nice addition to his often-impressive rookie season. “A lot of it with him is understanding where he’s at in a count, where he’s at in a game, how to use his stuff, when he needs to get in the zone, when he needs to get out of the zone, and then doing it,” Twins manager Rocco Baldelli said of Festa’s development.
“Because he has very good stuff and he has the ability to do these things — not losing that focus. Where you’re really understanding what you’re trying to do with a pitch.” Festa retired the first six hitters he faced, then escaped a bases-loaded third inning that was largely his fault because of a walk and hit batter.
He allowed a pair of singles in the fifth inning, and it cost him when Matt Wallner fielded Gleyber Torres’ two-out hit and threw the ball into the Tigers’ dugout, an error that allowed Dillon Dingler to score. That was all for Festa, who could receive another start — but who more likely figures to return to Class AAA this weekend in order to allow Zebby Matthews to fill in for injured Pablo López next week. Baldelli declined to say what the team’s plan for Festa is — and made it clear that Festa hadn’t been told, either.
“We don’t want to bog any of our pitchers down with unnecessary information,” the manager said. “When he gets here, I shake his hand and tell him, ‘Go get settled in and go pitch.’ You don’t need to add conversations that they don’t need.
” Twins Twins Twins What Festa needed was a little more run support, but that’s a common problem for the Twins’ staff these days. The Twins scored only once while Festa was in, after Byron Buxton walked and stole second base, then hustled home on France’s single to center field. Once Festa was pulled, however, the Twins surged into the lead on an RBI single by Carlos Correa, a run-scoring groundout by Buxton and an RBI double into the right-field corner by Julien.
BOXSCORE: Tiger 7, Twins 6 MLB standings The lead didn’t last, though. Alcala walked Riley Greene, threw a wild pitch and walked Spencer Torkelson to open the sixth. Colt Keith’s dribbler up the third-base line loaded the bases, and Zach McKinstry drove home two runs with a single, knocking Alcala from the game.
Dingler greeted Justin Topa with another RBI hit and the go-ahead run scored on Trey Sweeney’s groundout. The Tigers added another unearned run an inning later, when Kerry Carpenter reached base on a ground ball that bounced off Castro’s glove. Three batters later, Keith looped a single into left to bring Carpenter home.
Buxton countered that run with an upper-deck shot in the bottom of the inning, but a Javier Baez RBI double restored the Tigers’ two-run lead in the eighth..
