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Twins’ Pablo Lopez exits Athletics game with apparent injury
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- Twins’ Pablo Lopez exits Athletics game with apparent injury
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The post Twins' Pablo Lopez exits Athletics game with apparent injury appeared first on ClutchPoints .
The Minnesota Twins are caught up in a late-night affair with the Athletics on Tuesday night, and they have now fallen on hard times despite holding onto 9-3 lead late in the contest.
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Twins starter Pablo Lopez was cruising along through five innings in this one, giving up just four hits and a pair of earned runs as his Twins held a three-run lead. Lopez had walked three, but only had thrown 72 pitches, so manager Rocco Baldelli and his staff were surely banking on getting at least another inning out of him.
That would not be the case, When Lopez came out for the sixth inning, he threw just one pitch in warm-ups before signaling to the Twins dugout and asking to check out of the game with an apparent injury.
This is obviously a major development for the Twins, who will now have to dig a little bit deeper into their bullpen than maybe they were planning on doing coming into Tuesday night. Minnesota started the post-Lopez portion of the game with Cole Sands , who gave up one run in the sixth inning to allow the Athletics to have some life.
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Thankfully for Baldelli and company, that life was short-lived thanks to the Twins' offense. Minnesota racked up four runs in the top of the seventh inning to truly blow the game open and all but secure the victory, giving the Twins the first two games of a four-game set with the A's.
However, the focus and concern will be on the health of Lopez moving forward. The former Miami Marlin has proven to be very steady so far this season, coming into Tuesday with a 4-3 record and just a 2.75 ERA in 10 starts for the season. The right-hander has only given away 11 walks on the season to go with his 57 strikeouts.
The Twins will have to shuffle the rotation around if Lopez is forced to miss significant time, which could halt some of the momentum for what has been a hot baseball team of late. While Minnesota is still chasing the Detroit Tigers at the top of the AL Central, they are well above the .500 mark and are firmly in the wild card race in the American League.
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