Game Recap: Six-run eighth leads Twins past Cubs |
Dustin Riese
· · 7 hours ago
MINNEAPOLIS - You're going to have some ugly games throughout a baseball season, and Tuesday night simply wasn't the Chicago Cubs' (54-37) night. Despite another strong Shota Imanaga start, the Cubs offense was held in check as they were held scoreless until the ninth inning.
Pair that with a Minnesota Twins (44-47) offense that scored twice in the first inning and then six times in the second, and the Cubs fell to the Twins 8-1 to kick off their series at Target Field. You got a sense of how things were going to go in this one right from the jump, as this was a strange start by Imanaga. Sure, the left-hander gave the Cubs six innings of two-run, five-hit baseball, but with no walks and only one strikeout, the Twins found a way to make plenty of contact. Not only that, but most of that contact was loud as they hit eight balls over 106 MPH in the game, with several of them coming off Imanaga. Both of the runs charged to Imanaga came in the first as the Twins jumped on him quickly with a pair of doubles from Byron Buxton and Ryan Jeffers to open up a 1-0 lead. Jeffers would advance to third on a Carlos Correa single later in the inning before doubling the lead on a Royce Lewis sacrifice fly that had the Twins on top 2-0. Apart from that inning, Imanaga did a great job of limiting the damage, although he was bailed out by his defense several times. The same can be said about Simeon Woods-Richardson, who has been on quite a roll as of late. Over his last five starts, Woods-Richardson has not only dominated the hitters, but he has allowed only four runs in those starts. That included no runs against this high-powered Cubs offense on Tuesday, as he played as big of a role as anyone in getting the Twins the win. Woods-Richardson allowed a pair of singles to Dansby Swanson and Kyle Tucker as the lone hits in his outing, but with three walks and four strikeouts, the Cubs did find ways to put traffic on the bases at times, only to come up empty. One of their better scoring chances came in the third when Ian Happ worked a two-out walk to keep the inning alive before advancing to second on a Kyle Tucker single. With the MLB RBI leader in Suzuki looking to come through, Woods-Richardson stood tall and got Suzuki on strikes to end the inning. Despite throwing just 61 pitches to get through five innings, Rocco Baldelli elected to go to the bullpen and called on Danny Coulombe to pitch the sixth. Entering this outing, Coulombe has the second-lowest ERA in baseball, and despite that, this pitching change almost backfired in the Twins' face. With Tucker standing on first after a leadoff walk, the Cubs were close to leaving him there, only to have Michael Busch come through with a massive single off the wall that put runners on the corners. Brock Stewart came in from there and proceeded to blow Swanson away on three heaters to keep the shutout intact. From there, it was a battle of the bullpens, with Caleb Thielbar taking over for Imanaga in the seventh and working a scoreless frame, which set the stage for Griffin Jax and the Twins in the eighth. When you look at the Twins and their roster, should this team become sellers at the deadline, Jax is a name that is going to get plenty of attention as the right-hander ranks near the top of the league with a 38.7% strikeout rate. Early on in his outing, the Cubs had some good looks at him, with Happ starting things off with a single before moving to second on Tucker. This set the Cubs up with their best scoring opportunity of the day, but with Suzuki and Pete Crow-Armstrong going down on strikes, the pressure fell to Busch, who crushed one right into the glove of Willi Castro in right. That inning alone took away all the momentum the Cubs were starting to build, but it was the lackluster performance from Porter Hodge in the eighth that put the game away. Still rounding into form since returning from the IL, Hodge was terrible on Tuesday as he registered just one out while being charged with six earned runs. Five of those six runs came on a trio of homers from Jeffers, Castro, and Harrison Bader to open up an 8-0 lead. Lewis added an RBI single as part of that massive inning as the Cubs were down to their final three outs with plenty of work to do. Scoreless up to this point, Justin Turner took matters into his own hands as he put an end to the shutout with a solo shot, his 200th career homer. That homer was followed by a Nico Hoerner single, only to have Matt Shaw ground into a game-ending double play to give the Twins an 8-1 win. With the loss, coupled with the Brewers' win, the Cubs' lead in the NL Central is back down to 2.5 games, as this race will likely come down to the bitter end. The Cubs will look to even things up on Wednesday when they send Cade Horton to the mound against David Festa.
