Twins' 'new era' home opener features more stellar pitching, unproductive star shortstop

Precisely 20 weeks after the celebrity tandem of Juice Sutton and Joe Pohlad ignited a crowd gathered at the Mall of America by introducing a "new era of Twins baseball," the athletes on Friday returned to Target Field for the franchise's 63rd home opener in Minnesota.

There have been several eras — excellent, mediocre, bad and abysmal — in this ballclub's decades among us, although this is the first based largely on laundry.

Unfortunately, the key ingredient in the new wardrobe, the bold M with a star above it on the ball cap, goes with road uniforms. The home clothing has a more traditional look, with TC on the cap, and "Twins" in large cursive across the front of the jersey.

The home debut of the new era also featured the gigantic videoboard with the crystal-clear graphics.

As it turned out, it took until the bottom of the 10th for the $30 million board to show highlights that caused large celebration for home fans in a sellout crowd announced at 38,465.

First, there was Jose Miranda's tying single the other way, followed by Kyle Farmer's single up the middle to provide the Twins with a 3-2 victory over Houston's World Series champions.

Before that, it was tie between starting pitcher Sonny Gray's career-high 13 strikeouts, and Carlos Correa's futility in what could have been game-turning at-bats, as the most intriguing elements for the Twins.

Gray had mentioned a strong urge to pitch longer into games in 2023 while in spring training. He had control issues, walking four in his first start at Kansas City, and was hooked after five scoreless innings.

On Friday, manager Rocco Baldelli was as dazzled by Gray's breaking ball as were the Astros hitters, and he allowed the righthander to go seven innings and 98 pitches.

This came after Pablo López went seven innings, gave up one run and threw 88 pitches at Miami in the Twins' previous game.

The Twins had 10 starts of seven innings or more in the 162 games played in 2022.

So what's gotten into Rocco? It's not that tough: Dominant pitching from starters featuring their best arsenal in games — something not seen with much frequency before the hook came out last season.

The true question for these Twins becomes this:

How is it that even with terrific starts, the Twins are being required to huff-and-puff so mightily to try to win those games?

The score was 1-1 when López left Wednesday, and then the strong Twins bullpen wavered and the Marlins won 5-2.

The Twins were again tied 1-1 on Friday when Gray left. It took the free baserunner at second to assist the winning rally in the bottom of the 10th.

The Twins are 5-2, and have done some serious hitting in only two of those games.

Correa was off to a bad start on the six-game road trip, and it went from bad to brutal Friday. He gets booed most everywhere as carryover from his part in the Astros' somewhat-tainted title in 2017.

By the end of Friday's game, he also heard some of those in his second big-league home yard. It went like this:

Pop-up in first (OK, no problem). Two on in third, strikeout to end the inning. Strikeout in the fifth. Double-play grounder in seventh. Strikeout to lead off the 10th, with Byron Buxton as the free runner at second.

Baldelli agreed that it was a rough game for his shortstop, mentioning that early in the year you can see good hitters struggle, but unsurprisingly said he was worried not at all.

Glen Perkins, three-time All-Star reliever, now a regular on Twins telecasts, said:

"In the spring and the fall, with 3 o'clock games in this park, when the sun is bright and the shadows are strong, hitters don't have much chance.

"They can pick up a fastball, but a good breaking ball, or a great one like Gray had today … they have no chance."

So, the answer is don't play 3 p.m. games in this ballpark in the spring or the fall?

"Of course not," Perkins said. "I'm a pitcher. I'm in favor of all the 3 o'clock games they can schedule now and in September."

Correa would disagree, it would seem.