CHICAGO – Bailey Ober He hates these kinds of days. The days when he feels great, his pitches are working, everything is going well… until he makes a mistake and his day is ruined.
That happened Wednesday in the Twins’ 3-1 loss to the White Sox in the first game of a doubleheader.
Ober faced the minimum 12 batters over four hitless innings, then allowed a double to Gavin’s Leaves “It was a pretty good pitch. We were trying to get to him and we got to him,” Ober said. “I’d seen a couple of those today and that was the first one he got his bat on.”
Sheets finally scored on a sacrifice fly, which was pretty upsetting. But an inning later, after getting two quick outs, Ober allowed a ground-rule double to Andrew Vaughnand then a 416-foot home run Luis Roberto Jr. On the next pitch, an errant fastball.
“That was probably the biggest location error of the day. It was supposed to be up and in, and I threw the ball down,” Ober said. “And it was right in the path of his bat.”
Ober finished with a quality start, his fifth in a row (six innings, just four hits and three runs) and a loss, his fifth.
“I felt like I was executing, getting guys out early and getting them to hit and getting weak contact. I felt good, I just wish I had finished better,” Ober said. “But there are games like this all the time. I mean, if I get that pitch (to Robert) up and in, and then I get him with something else, we’re out of it. We’d be a 1-0 game going into the seventh. Sometimes, things just happen.”
Lee shows his skills on the field
Speaking of Robert, when the speedy White Sox pitcher hit a slow ball between second and third base during the 10th inning on Monday, the Twins third baseman Brooks Lee He instinctively lunged for the ball, but after taking two steps, he stopped and stepped back, allowing the shortstop to Carlos Correa to get in front of him, catch the ball and take it to first base a half step before Robert.
It’s a move that the manager Rocco Baldelli I was still amazed on Wednesday.
“A guy who’s been in the league for a week and a guy who’s been a star for a long time, and they both have excellent field awareness. They know everything that’s going on around them and they can make decisions very quickly,” Baldelli said. “Those are instincts for guys like (Lee). He already has them. He’s very aware.”
The reason for that was Lee’s experience as a shortstop, he said. Andres Benintendi He started the extra inning at second base, and Lee said he had that in mind as he walked away from the ball on the ground.
“On a play like that, the runner has a chance to get to third. When I play shortstop, I always let the third baseman know, ‘Hey, if I don’t have a play at first, then I need to throw to third base because there might be an out there,'” Lee explained. “That guy is a good runner. I was thinking, (Carlos) is in position to make the play, I need to get back to third in case he wants to throw to me.”
Etc.
* Feast of David He joined the Twins on Wednesday as the 27th additional player allowed for doubleheaders. He didn’t play in a game, but was the best option to fill that role, Baldelli said, “because he’s good — you have to start there — and he can pitch in almost any situation if we need him to.”
Festa, currently a starter for Class AAA St. Paul, has pitched in relief just nine times in his four-year professional career.
“But if we have to, we could throw him for five innings in one of these games. Or he could end up closing out the second game if we use a lot of pitchers in the first,” Baldelli said. “You never know. We told him to be ready to pitch any position.”
* Wednesday’s first game ended on a historic note: White Sox closer Michael Kopech He retired all three Twins he faced: Lee, Matt Wallner and Max Kepler — with strikeouts on three pitches, a rare feat known as an immaculate inning. Kopech is the first White Sox pitcher to accomplish that in more than a century, joining Hollis “Sloppy” Thurston against the Philadelphia Athletics in 1923.
This is also the second time this has been done to the Twins; Chris Salethen from Boston, he smelled Nick Gordon, Andrelton Simmons and Rob Refsnyder on August 26, 2021.
* Reliever Michael Sorokawho gave up by Ryan Jeffers An RBI single in the seventh inning earned him the loss in Game 2, dropping his record to 0-10 on the season and the White Sox to 1-20 in games in which he has pitched. Soroka, who began the season in Chicago’s starting rotation, is challenging the MLB record for most losses by a pitcher without a win, a record held by a Twin. Terry Felton He went 0-13 for the Twins in 1982.
* The St. Paul Saints hit four home runs and held the Louisville Bats to their final strike in the ninth inning on Wednesday, but Michael Truatwein hit a home run to beat the Saints 6-5 in front of a crowd of 4,582 at Louisville Slugger Field. Edouard Julien homered for the second straight game for the Saints, his fifth of the year.
