BALTIMORE — In the couple of months Rocco Baldelli has known Dylan Bundy, the Twins manager has come to respect the starter's to-the-point demeanor. Bundy talks plain, means what he says and will tell you the truth no matter how blunt the take.
Orioles crush Twins and Dylan Bundy gets right to the point: 'It was bad.'
Effective in his first three starts, the righthander made it only into the fourth inning Wednesday.
May 5, 2022 at 11:46AM
So when he left the mound in the fourth inning Wednesday having given up 11 hits and nine runs to set the Twins up for their 9-4 loss to the Orioles, there were no creative excuses or evasive maneuvers.
"It was bad," Bundy said after the game. "I didn't really have any control of the fastball, trying to throw off-speed pitches behind or early in the count, and they got hit hard. So just all around, it wasn't a good outing at all."
This was the second consecutive start in which the 29-year-old has unraveled and cost the Twins a game. If not for those two starts, the Twins might be on a 13-game winning streak. But because of his performance Wednesday in Oriole Park at Camden Yards, plus the six runs and seven hits he allowed Friday in Tampa Bay, the Twins are now 15-10.
In Friday's game, the Rays had clearly done their film study and enacted an aggressive strategy at the plate, jumping on Bundy's early pitches. After a four-run first inning, Bundy was mostly able to settle down and ended up staying in the game through six innings.
That was not the case Wednesday. Bundy (3-2) allowed a hit apiece in the first two innings before a five-hit, six-run third that included three extra-base hits — including a pair of two-run home runs — and two walks.
Bundy wouldn't even allow himself to find positives in his first two innings, saying both of those hits were hard ones, and he missed his spots then just like later in the game. He came back out in the fourth inning but had not improved, letting in another four hits and three runs to the now 9-16 Orioles.
"I wasn't able to figure it out out there on the mound, and that's the frustrating part," Bundy said. "The embarrassing part of it."
Bundy left the game with an out to go in the fourth, and the one positive of the Twins' loss would have to be the bullpen performance. Danny Coulombe and Jovani Moran each pitched multiple innings, allowing only two hits between them and no more runs.
Baldelli took some of the blame off Bundy, saying the Twins should have been stronger defensively. Shortstop Carlos Correa and first baseman Jose Miranda committed throwing errors.
Offensively, the Twins briefly appeared to have started a comeback in the fourth after trailing 6-0. Correa smacked a two-run homer while Nick Gordon and Gio Urshela both collected RBI. But the comeback ended when Gilberto Celestino's line drive pelted Gary Sanchez running from first to second.
That ended Baltimore starter Kyle Bradish's outing at six hits and four runs, but it also ended the Twins' scoring for the rest of the game.
"It's kind of like an immediate downer," Baldelli said of the play.
The Twins hit into five double plays, which made momentum at the plate difficult to build. But climbing out of a hole as large as Bundy had dug was going to be a challenge regardless.
In his first three starts, Bundy gave up nine hits and only one run, good for a stunning 0.59 ERA. Since his past two starts, that has mushroomed to 5.76, the worst among Twins starters, who had ranked third in the majors in ERA heading into the game. Now they're down to eighth.
That this is a small sample size — only two games of 162 — and that the Twins have still won 11 of their past 13 games is of little consolation to Bundy.
"It was horrible," Bundy said. "That's about as simple as it gets."
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