The sellout crowd shuffled out of Target Field on Wednesday night for the last time this season after the Twins' 3-2 loss to the Houston Astros that simply can be explained this way:
Twins' bats go silent vs. Astros with season on the line
For the second game in a row, the Twins had just three hits and 14 strikeouts. They will be thinking about these two silent nights until spring training in February.
October 12, 2023 at 2:47AM
The Twins couldn't get a hit, particularly when they needed one most.
One night after they had just three hits and 14 strikeouts in a 9-1 loss to the Astros, the Twins did exactly the same in Game 4 of the American League Division Series on Wednesday: just three hits and 14 more Ks.
Two of those three Twins hits Wednesday were solo home runs by rookies: Royce Lewis in the first inning and Edouard Julien in the sixth. Julien doubled to lead off the game, meaning two of the three Twins hits were in the game's opening moments. The next nearly three hours featured just one more Twins hit, and then: elimination.
"You bank on scoring some runs and making some things happen," Twins manager Rocco Baldelli said afterward. "Offensively, it didn't feel like we settled in and had the at-bats we had most of the year, most of the second half at least.
"But you have to give credit to the team on the other side for being a good ballclub and for pitching well."
Baserunners were hard to come by Wednesday for the Twins. They left only two men on base all night — only one in scoring position. Strikeouts, however, were remarkably common — Wednesday, all week and all postseason. The Twins had 73 strikeouts in six playoff games.
"We're a team that will strike out," Baldelli said. "So the strikeouts in and of itself, that's not necessarily an issue. We'd like to put a few more balls in play on the barrel and see what happens."
The Twins scored 18 runs in these six October postseason games, an average of three a game. In September, they averaged 6.25 runs a game.
The last of Houston's five pitchers, Ryan Pressly, worked Jorge Polanco, Lewis and Max Kepler to 3-2 counts in the bottom of the ninth. Strikeout, strikeout, strikeout, with Kepler walking back to the dugout with his bat in hand to end the game — and end the Twins' season.
Chris Sale was one of the ace left-handers Tarik Skubal idolized as a teenager. Now the two will be linked forever after winning their first Cy Young Awards on Wednesday.
