Twins teammates rally to support Jorge Alcala after awful seventh inning

ARLINGTON, TEXAS – Jorge Alcala sat alone in front of his locker for several minutes Sunday, head down and silent. The 29-year-old righthander declined to discuss what was arguably the worst outing of his career, when he gave up a career-high five runs and recorded only two outs, turning a 4-0 lead into a 5-4 deficit.

His teammates noticed. They hope to help.

“We’ve just got to keep encouraging him. Everyone is — I don’t want to say entitled to one of these days, but we all go through it,” said Griffin Jax, who watched from the mound in the Twins bullpen, warming up to pitch the next inning. “He’s a very shy, kind of innocent guy. It’s also his first year healthy in a few years, so he’s still getting used to the nuance of the game and how to handle struggle. I don’t think anybody is immune to giving up five, and you just don’t shake it off that easily.”

Catcher Ryan Jeffers said he would remind Alcala that he was nearly unhittable in June and July, posting a 1.14 ERA in 24 games. And also: those pitches weren’t that bad.

“You can nitpick, but they were squaring up 100 mph. To do that as well as they did, you’ve just got to tip your cap,” Jeffers said. “His [velocity] was good, the pitches were good. He might have been pulling down a little more than usual, but it’s still really hard to square up 100 mph.”

The secret, Jax said, is putting it behind you with a good outing next time. “That’s the best thing about being a reliever — you’ve got a day or two down, and then you’ll be right back in there, ready to right the ship,” Jax said. “It’s not easy watching a teammate go through that, but getting him the ball again will help.”

Kyle Farmer had never faced the Rangers’ starting pitcher Sunday. But he was plenty familiar with him.

Tyler Mahle, who pitched only nine games over two seasons for the Twins before being shut down last April and undergoing Tommy John elbow surgery, made his third start for Texas since completing his rehab. His first two starts had gone well — one run in five innings against Houston, two runs in 4⅔ against Boston — but the Twins “were just on his fastball” Sunday.

Mahle, acquired in a deadline-day trade in 2022 from Cincinnati for Christian Encarnacion-Strand and Spencer Steer, pitched three innings against his old team, and needed 61 pitches to get through them. Jose Miranda tripled in the first inning, Trevor Larnach doubled him home and Jeffers homered, then singled home another run two innings later.

“I love Mahle to death, he’s a great guy,” said Farmer, Mahle’s teammate with the Reds as well. “But his velo was down, you could tell. The fastball [which averaged 89.9 mph Sunday] wasn’t what it used to be,” which is typical for a pitcher just returning from a 15-month rehab.

Jeffers’ home run was his second in three days using a bat painted for Players Weekend to look like a pencil with an eraser on the end. That’s why Jeffers joked that he’d like to paint over the pencil and continue using the bat to see how many homers it will produce.

Actually, though, “it’ll probably go on a wall at my house somewhere,” said the Twins’ home-run leader with 19. “I was getting good swings off with it, which is great. Kind of funny it came together like that here, when I’m swinging a pencil.”

There is one other option for the out-of-commission pencil, though. “Cooperstown can have it if they want it,” Jeffers said with a laugh.

Carlos Santana’s ninth-inning tying home run off Kirby Yates was rooted in his at-bat against the Rangers closer Thursday, he said.

Yates, 21-for-21 in save situations this year before Sunday, threw three splitters in a six-pitch at-bat three days earlier, when Santana flew out.

“I know he’s tough, so I looked at the pitch-for-pitch with him,” said Santana, who was hitless in five previous at-bats vs. Yates. “The first game, I see his splitter — splitter, splitter, splitter, now I know it. So I don’t think he wants to be throwing it this time. He’ll prefer to throw his fastball.”

Sure enough, in Sunday’s four-pitch at-bat, Santana saw only one splitter, and it was in the dirt. The rest were fastballs — including the high-and-middle one on 1-2 that Santana hit nearly 400 feet, his 18th homer as a Twin.

“I tried to think about what he would think about,” Santana said. “I was right.”

Matt Gorski hit a walk-off homer off Caleb Baragar in the ninth inning and host Indianapolis rallied to hand the Saints their ninth loss in a row, winning 7-6.