The Twins' tenuous hold on a turnaround took a tumble Friday, thanks to familiar troubles.
Randy Dobnak starts strong for Twins but loses his grip in 8-3 loss to Kansas City
Pitchers struggled, and clutch hits were absent.
May 29, 2021 at 5:33AM
After building a four-game win streak – including a series sweep of the Baltimore Orioles, the worst team in the American League — the Twins had a chance to regain an inch of extensive ground against AL Central rival Kansas City. But pitching woes and hitting slumps set the Twins back 8-3 in front of an announced crowd of 14,260 at Target Field.
At 20-30, the Twins are 10 games back in the division. The Royals improved to 24-25 and are five games back in the middle of the standings.
The Twins left eight on base, going just 1-for-9 with runners in scoring position. They mustered just six hits compared with Kansas City's 13. The Royals were 6-for-9 in their clutch-hitting situations.
Both starting pitchers started strong, with Kansas City's Kris Bubic allowing just four hits in his six innings. The only run he allowed came on Mitch Garver's second-deck home run in the fourth inning to break the 0-0 deadlock.
Twins starter Randy Dobnak, pitching in place of injured Kenta Maeda, started similarly strong. He gave up just a hit apiece in the first two innings before recording 1-2-3 innings in the third and fourth with just 18 pitches. But in the fifth, he surrendered a two-out walk and three consecutive hits as the Royals took a 3-1 lead.
"I hate walking people. It's almost like every time I walk someone, something bad's going to happen," Dobnak said. "I wasn't thinking about that on the mound, obviously, but the next pitch was a hard ground ball to right-center field, and I was like, 'There's no way this guy's going to score,' right?"
Hunter Dozier came home on Michael A. Taylor's double. Garver appeared to be in prime position to catch the ball and tag Dozier out, but it popped out of his glove as Dozier flew past the catcher.
"Nine times out of 10, they probably get him there," Dobnak said. "But it is what it is."
Dobnak next struggled in the seventh, allowing back-to-back-to-back base hits to load the bases. Reliever Cody Stashak took the mound with that pressure while also facing the top of the Royals' batting order. He gave up three hits while each inherited runner scored, bringing the Twins' season average to 66.7%, well above the league mark of 35%.
Six hits and five runs later, the Twins entered the bottom of the seventh down 8-1. But the Royals gifted them a bases-loaded situation from three consecutive walks. The Twins managed to score just two runs from that, one off pinch-hitter Trevor Larnach's single and the other from a wild pitch.
While Stashak — who hadn't pitched since May 20 — came back to pitch a clean and quick eighth inning, the damage was already done.
"The fireman role is not an easy role to play, and it's, as we've seen throughout the years, it's not for everyone," Twins manager Rocco Baldelli said. "But you've got to trust that your guys can go out there and get the job done. You tend to try to not do it to the same guys all the time, I mean, because those are very stressful situations and innings to have to come into.
"But in a game like this, if we're not going to come in and slow them down and really cinch that and find a way to get through that inning, it is tough to come back after something like that."
Robust competition is likely for righthander Roki Sasaki, whose agent suggests a “smaller, midmarket” team might be a good route to take, but the Los Angeles Dodgers are said to be the favorites to land him.
