All season long, our Twins writers will be breaking down each game after the final pitch. Today: Aaron Gleeman analyzes Friday’s potentially costly loss to the Royals.
Final score: Royals 7, Twins 2
Record: 17-10
AL Central position: First place, a half-game ahead of Cleveland
Story of the game
Returning to the scene of the confidence-shaking sweep in Kansas City two weekends ago, and trotting out an injury-ravaged lineup only a mother could love, the Twins fell behind 4-0 in the first inning Friday, and their sputtering offense never mounted a serious threat in yet another road loss to the Royals.
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Worse, they might have lost Jake Odorizzi. (UPDATE: They did. On Saturday, Odorizzi was put on the 10-day IL.)
Odorizzi, who began the season on the injured list with a strained intercostal and has now faced the Royals in each of his three starts since returning, allowed four runs — including a Jorge Soler three-run homer — before recording an out. He escaped without further damage and tossed scoreless second and third innings before an Alex Gordon line drive to the ribs knocked him out in the fourth.
The initial diagnosis is a right abdomen contusion, which means no broken ribs, but at the very least Odorizzi’s next start is in question.
“That’s a frightening moment,” manager Rocco Baldelli said. “You never want to see anything like that on a field or anywhere else. Jake’s abdomen took the brunt of it. He’s got a pretty good mark visible from across the room.”
Odorizzi was moving very gingerly in the postgame media session.
“Kind of hard to breathe at the moment, still not the easiest to move around,” Odorizzi said after being helped into a chair. “But it could have been much worse. I saw the replay and it missed my elbow by a couple inches. All things considered, I feel pretty lucky.”
It’s the latest setback in what has become a nightmare season for Odorizzi. Last offseason, he hit the open market coming off his first All-Star campaign and found underwhelming interest due to draft-pick compensation attached to signing him. Odorizzi returned to the Twins on a one-year, $17.8 million deal, with plans to cash in next offseason as an unrestricted free agent.
Those plans have already been thoroughly ruined, first by COVID-19 and now by two injuries, meaning he’ll receive only a fraction of that salary and then re-enter free agency in an extremely depressed spending environment having made fewer than 10 starts in his prove-it season.
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“It didn’t hit my arm, it didn’t hit anything that would’ve been very detrimental to the rest of this season and beyond,” Odorizzi said. “There’s a lot on the line after this season for me personally. I’m still able to pitch, go out and do what I need to do for this team.”
Kansas City has also been a nightmare for the Twins this season. Friday’s loss drops them to 0-4 at Kauffman Stadium, compared with 17-6 in all other games. Meanwhile, the Royals are 7-15 when not facing the Twins at home, including losing three out of four games at Target Field.
If you’re looking for a logical explanation for that, don’t. There isn’t one.
No imminent returns from injured list
None of the five players currently on the injured list traveled with the Twins to begin the 10-game trip through Kansas City, Cleveland and Detroit. It’s possible that players could be activated from the IL and travel on their own to rejoin the team in the middle of the trip, but COVID-19 protocols make that more complicated.
“Everybody stayed back and will be doing their rehab and potentially getting in some action back in St. Paul,” Baldelli said.
Josh Donaldson continues to test his strained right calf, while Homer Bailey threw a bullpen session for the first time since being shut down with biceps tendinitis following his first start. Cody Stashak was eligible to return Friday from lower-back inflammation, but he’s yet to resume throwing. Mitch Garver (intercostal) and Byron Buxton (shoulder) are eligible to return Aug. 30.
They might be joined on the increasingly crowded IL by Odorizzi and Zack Littell, who left Friday’s game in the seventh inning with elbow soreness. (UPDATE: On Saturday, Littell was put on the 10-day IL.)
Arraez remains out with knee soreness
Luis Arraez has thus far avoided the injured list, but the second baseman was out of the lineup Friday for the second consecutive game and has missed five of the past seven games with left knee soreness.
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“Luis is feeling a lot better,” Baldelli said. “I would expect to see him back out there playing very soon. He’s been progressing well.”
Arraez has been limited by the knee problem dating to summer camp last month, and he’s started just 19 of the Twins’ first 26 games. He’d been playing well before the recent absence, collecting seven hits in four games to raise his batting average from .216 to .277.
New acquisition Ildemaro Vargas has emerged as the primary fill-in for Arraez at second base.
Garver’s injury wasn’t a known issue
Given his season-opening slump, it was fair to wonder if Garver was already playing at less than 100 percent before tweaking his right side on a swinging strikeout Wednesday. Garver hit .154 with one homer in 17 games before being placed on the injured list, and he repeatedly swung through fastballs he’d crushed throughout a breakout 2019 season.
Baldelli indicated Friday that though Garver might have been playing through some minor aches and pains during the past few weeks, the malady that sent him to the IL wasn’t a previous issue.
“I became aware of it when he swung and when we all saw him kind of wince and grimace as he came off the field,” Baldelli said. “We all know in baseball there are fairly minor things that guys deal with all the time. Sometimes they grow into bigger things and you see that on the field, and it becomes apparent to everyone. I didn’t know anything about him dealing with anything. I think it was just on that swing.”
There’s no official timetable for Garver’s return, opening the door for 23-year-old prospect Ryan Jeffers to get a long look as the Twins’ primary catcher.
Maeda stays on schedule
Kenta Maeda threw a career-high 115 pitches in Tuesday’s near no-hitter, the most by any pitcher in baseball this season, but the right-hander will remain on his normal schedule and start Monday’s series opener in Cleveland.
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He’ll be followed by Rich Hill on Tuesday and José Berríos on Wednesday, as the AL Central rivals clash for the second of this season’s three series. In their first matchup, the Twins won three out of four at Target Field.
Quotable
“We know when we have tough times, everyone’s aware and everyone’s looking after the guy next to him. We have the kind of group that bands together and gets through things well. I don’t think bringing everyone together for any sort of rah-rah-type gathering ever really gets the effect of just guys pulling together and coming together and authentically pulling for each other.” — Baldelli on the team’s morale with so many players hurt
“Other than getting Happy Gilmore’d in the chest, physically I feel OK.” — Odorizzi, a fan of the Adam Sandler filmography
(Photo of Jake Odorizzi: Jamie Squire / Getty Images)
