Story by
Pioneer Press, St. Paul, Minn.
Reds come back late for second straight day to sweep Twins
- Story byPioneer Press, St. Paul, Minn.
- Reds come back late for second straight day to sweep Twins
A couple hits here, a couple plays made there, and the Twins could have been wrapping up their own series sweep on Sunday at Target Field. Instead, for the second straight day, the Twins were unable to hang onto a lead late as the Cincinnati Reds made a late comeback against the bullpen.
This time it was starter Bailey Ober whose 6 1/3-inning gem went for naught with the Reds scoring three runs in the ninth inning off rookie Andrew Morris to take their first lead of the day. An Austin Martin double knotted the game up in the bottom of the ninth, forcing it into extras, but some shaky defense in the 10th did nothing to help matters as the Twins fell 7-4 to the Reds in the series finale at Target Field.
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The team's three starters — Joe Ryan , Taj Bradley and Ober — gave up just three earned runs in 18 1/3 innings in the series and yet the Twins (11-11) came away with no wins.
"I think throughout the series, we had an opportunity to win every game in this series and we didn't capitalize," manager Derek Shelton said. "We didn't make plays that we need to make and it ended up costing us games all three days."
Sunday, the Twins made a pair of errors on the same play in the 10th inning with Tristan Gray at third unable to handle a ground ball hit his way. The ball then got past Martin in left as he had trouble picking it up. Elly De La Cruz , the go-ahead run, came around to score as a result. Two more runs scored in the inning before Garrett Acton could get off the mound.
It came after, an inning earlier, Shelton left Morris, in just his second-career major league outing, in in the ninth to try to protect a two-run advantage.
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Cole Sands had pitched in each of the past two games. So had Kody Funderburk and Justin Topa . Taylor Rogers had been used earlier on Sunday. With a bullpen that was "beat up a little bit with a couple of guys down," Shelton went with Morris, who had pitched a scoreless eighth inning, in the save situation, noting that they liked the matchup.
It didn't work.
Morris allowed a pair of singles to begin the inning and walked a batter to load the bases. TJ Friedl , who had just one RBI on the season entering Sunday, then delivered a three-run swing.
"I just didn't really execute," Morris said. "So yeah, pretty simple as that. Didn't put the ball where it needed to go."
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All the late scoring came after a stellar outing from Ober.
Ober threw just three pitches on Sunday afternoon that hit 90 miles per hour on the radar or higher. No matter. Though his velocity remains lower than what it once was, Ober has learned to pitch at those speeds effectively and Sunday was his greatest example of that thus far.
The starter limited the Reds (14-8) to just one run in his outing. In doing so, he reached double digits in strikeouts for the sixth time in his career, finishing with 10.
"Just not relying obviously too much on velo but just pitching," Ober said. "Just kind of doing what I do. I've never been a super hard thrower so just getting back to the basics of myself, which is get the changeup down, mix off-speed pitches and surprise guys with fastballs."
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The Reds scored just one run off him and it was unearned after an error by James Outman in right advanced the run-scorer, De La Cruz, earlier in the inning.
He allowed just three hits and pitched with a lead for most of his day as the Twins scored a run in the first inning on Victor Caratini 's sacrifice fly. Caratini was also in the middle of the Twins' third-inning rally, driving in a run on a single off starter Brady Singer , right after Josh Bell had done the same.
The Twins couldn't muster much offensively through the middle innings, but in the ninth, Outman keyed a late game-tying rally. Outman received a rare start on Sunday in place of Matt Wallner , a late scratch from the lineup as he dealt with soreness from being hit by a pitch on the ribs on Monday.
Outman snapped an 0 for 19 stretch to begin the season with a single in the fourth. He doubled and scored the game-tying run the ninth as the Twins came back to tie the game off reliever Emilio Págan. But the Twins couldn't do it twice, leaving a pair of runners on base in the 10th as they suffered their fourth-straight loss.
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"We're in every game. It's just making a play or two, getting out of an inning, executing a little bit better but it's just right there," Ober said. "We just need to be able to step up and take those opportunities. They'll come again obviously."
