KANSAS CITY, MO. – The Twins being on their sixth center fielder is not ideal, and Thursday's game proved that. Twice over. In his second major league game, Gilberto Celestino committed two errors on the same play, which ended up turning a tit-for-tat game into a head-hanging loss.
Gilberto Celestino's errors lead to Kansas City's 6-5 victory over Twins
Celestino muffed a fly ball and threw wildly in the seventh inning of the loss to the Royals.
June 4, 2021 at 11:34AM
The Twins fell 6-5 in the first installment of a four-game series with Kansas City at Kauffman Stadium. They have lost six of their past seven games.
The bottom of the seventh inning was the team's undoing, starting with reliever Hansel Robles walking the first batter he faced. Pinch-runner Jarrod Dyson, and one out later, Andrew Benintendi hit a fly ball to left-center field, with Trevor Larnach primed to make the catch. But Celestino — the sixth Twins player to start in center field this season because of a plethora of injuries — flew in from out of nowhere to check Larnach and intercept the ball.
But he dropped the catch and panicked trying to recover, throwing somewhere between first and second base and allowing the winning run to score.
The Twins' reactions said it all, from Larnach's open-handed gesture that personified "Why?" to Robles beating his fist into his glove as he cringed.
Manager Rocco Baldelli put it into words as plainly as possibly: "It's not a play that anyone, anyone in baseball would look up and say, 'That's difficult in any way.'"
Whether a lack of communication, the crowd or something else caused the rookie mistake will likely remain unvoiced. But it was definitive in one way, sealing the loss for the 22-34 Twins, who are 12 games back in the American League Central.
Celestino left his second major league game early after that play, with fellow rookie Alex Kirilloff taking his place when up to bat in the top of the eighth inning.
Baldelli said he saw the sequence as more of a left field play but also acknowledged players are taught to pursue the ball until called off. Celestino not taking his eye off the ball to check his surroundings also might have contributed. But ultimately, Baldelli said it's a gaffe veterans who have comfort and experience on the field don't make.
"This is something that both guys will take something out of and not let something like that happen again," Baldelli said. "It's not necessarily that big of a teaching moment. It's not as if there's a lot to go over and talk about."
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That botched moment took the shine off Josh Donaldson's long-ball matchup with Kansas City's Salvador Perez. Both hit two homers in the back-and-forth game.
The Twins had a rare night of consistent offense, ending with 10 hits and just three hitless innings. In addition to Donaldson's homers, Nick Gordon tallied his first major league RBI, Jorge Polanco hit an RBI double and Miguel Sano sent in a score from a sacrifice fly.
Starter J.A. Happ, though, gave up some runs he'd like back, including when he loaded the bases and then walked in a run by hitting a batter in the third. He left the game after five innings, allowing nine hits and five earned runs — including three homers, the third from Hunter Dozier — while striking out only two.
He, for one, isn't placing all the blame on Celestino.
"Yeah, I mean, I look inward at myself. What am I going to say?" Happ said. "… I'm exhausted right now, and I pitched five innings and didn't have a particularly good game at all. But I left it all out there. As long as everybody's doing that, that's all we can ask.
"Things happen and we've got to move on. We'll keep supporting everybody in here."
The Twins had 11 players under team control who were eligible for arbitration, and none of them will become free agents.
