In front of a sellout crowd, the Twins’ sixth this year, Camilo Pascual joined pitchers Jim Perry, Brad Radke and Rick Aguilera when he was inducted into the Twins Hall of Fame at the beginning of game two against the Oakland A’s.
More pertinently, however, was that with Scott Diamond shut down for an extended period of time and Francisco Liriano allegedly on the trading block, Eden Prairie, MN native Cole De Vries had an opportunity to solidify a spot next to them in the rotation in his sixth start of the season.
Safe to say he didn’t do any favors for himself Saturday night.
De Vries went five innings, giving up six hits and seven runs in a 9-3 loss.
Things did not go his way early.
He produced two quick outs in the first, but gave up a double to Cuban outfielder Yoenis Cespedes that scored Josh Reddick, hit Brandon (not Randy) Moss with a pitch and gave up a homer to Chris (not Cris) Carter.
“I just didn’t’ feel very good out there tonight,” he said. “I felt real weak.
“For the first inning or two I just felt overly hot and I knew my ball was up the whole night.”
He steadied himself after an early beating, getting the next four batters out, but had trouble with the heart of the A’s lineup again, giving up a single to Reddick and a home run to Josh Reddick in the third.
Dozier gave him a little support in the bottom half of the inning with a solo shot, but the team was already down 6-1 at that point.
“We actually swung the bats pretty good,” said manager Ron Gardenhire, who’s team outhit their opponent 14-12, but left nine men on base.
Things didn’t get any better as the game went on either. Seth Smith took him deep on the first pitch he faced in the fifth inning.
“Cole was up,” said the skipper. “Everything he threw was up.
“You could see even the pitches they were swinging through were belt-high, across the plate and [De Vries] was never able to make any adjustments.”
The Twins baserunning hurt the team today as both Span, now a repeat offender, and Doumit were put out at second in consecutive innings trying to stretch a single into something more.
“Silly outs on basepaths a few times,” continued Gardenhire. “Span’s was aggressive—the guy made a hell of a throw on him.
“Doumit just got around the bag and didn’t pick up the ball.”
De Vries would leave the game after the fifth inning, turning the ball over to long reliever Anthony Swarzak, who gave up a homer to the first hitter he faced, Moss. He said he wasn’t worried about how one poor start would affect his status with the team.
“I really tried not putting anything into that because that’s going to put so much added pressure on myself,” he said.
“It’s just one of those things: I’ve had good outings in my last ones and this is just one of those outings that wasn’t very good.”
Tom Schreier writes a weekly column for TheFanManifesto.com.
Follow him on Twitter @tschreier3.
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