Twins can’t find clutch hit as season ends with 3-2 loss to Astros
Several Twins players stood arm-in-arm in the dugout as they watched the final outs in their season drop one by one.
Facing the defending World Series champion Houston Astros, the Twins needed one big hit and it never came. Carlos Correa slammed his helmet on the dugout bench when he lined out to shortstop in the seventh inning, the hardest-hit ball of the night.
Ryan Pressly, the Astros closer, struck out the side in the ninth inning and a summer at Target Field ended at 8:47 p.m. Wednesday night with a 3-2 loss. The Twins totaled three hits — solo homers from Royce Lewis and Edouard Julien off José Urquidy — and 14 strikeouts.
The Astros advanced to the AL Championship Series, winning three of four games in the best-of-five set, for the seventh straight season. Atlanta, from 1991-99, is the only club with a longer streak. The Twins haven't reached the ALCS since 2002.
All seasons end abruptly when it doesn't end with a title and a downtown parade. This was a Twins team that broke the franchise's 18-game postseason losing streak, a cloud over the organization. They won the next afternoon, sweeping the Toronto Blue Jays in the wild-card round, and claimed their first playoff series win in 21 years.
An excellent pitching staff carried the Twins all season, but Yordan Alvarez and José Abreu won the series for the Astros.
Twins lefthander Caleb Thielbar entered in the fourth inning to face a lefty-heavy portion of the Astros lineup. Alvarez, who homered off Thielbar in Game 1 of the ALDS, muscled a fastball off the outer edge of the plate for a leadoff single.
After Thielbar struck out Kyle Tucker, righthanded-hitting Abreu smashed a two-run homer off the facing of the second deck in right field for his third home run in the last two games. It was Abreu's fourth hit in nine career at-bats against Thielbar and his second homer.
In an elimination game, the Twins decided the best strategy with their pitching staff was a bullpen game. Joe Ryan faced eight batters in two innings, serving seven of them a first-pitch strike. Michael Brantley hit a game-tying homer with two outs in the second inning, pulling a fastball over the wall in right field. One more batter reached on an infield single.
Two hits and one run were the extent of the damage against Ryan, but they had a full bullpen at their disposal. Brock Stewart entered in the third inning.
Trailing by two runs after Abreu's two-run homer off Thielbar, Chris Paddack injected energy into the dugout. Paddack, making his fourth appearance of the year after recovering from Tommy John surgery, pitched 2 ⅓ innings with four strikeouts.
Paddack told Twins officials in January not to rule him out for the season because he needed something to target in his daily rehab exercises. When he struck out Alex Bregman with a called third strike to end the fifth inning, he shouted as he walked off the mound and clapped into his glove.
Griffin Jax and Jhoan Duran combined for three more scoreless innings.
Lewis connected with a changeup that Urquidy left over the middle of the plate and drilled it into the left field seats to give the Twins a lead in the first inning. As Lewis ran up the first-base line, he looked toward his teammates in the dugout and offered the famous Michael Jordan shrug.
It was Lewis' fourth postseason homer in six games, trailing only Kirby Puckett (five in 24 games) for the most playoff homers in franchise history.
One day after the Astros' four-run first inning took the air out of a sellout Target Field crowd, Lewis made sure they were involved early. Urquidy made it short lived.
Urquidy retired 14 of his next 15 batters following Lewis' home run. The Astros' No. 4 starter had a stretch where he struck out five consecutive batters. Twins hitters whiffed on six of their first eight swings against Urquidy's fastball.
At some points, it looked like Urquidy was just messing with Twins hitters. Before a pitch to Ryan Jeffers in a 0-2 count, he squatted behind the mound as the pitch clock ticked closer to zero. Then he stood up, toed the rubber and began his delivery in one fluid motion.
Edouard Julien, who hit a double off the center field wall in the first inning and drew a walk in the third inning, lifted a changeup in the sixth inning for an opposite-field solo homer. The announced crowd of 40,977 roared to life as Julien pumped his right arm rounding first base. Julien, after he high-fived his teammates in the dugout, spiked to his helmet in celebration of his first career postseason homer.
Astros manager Dusty Baker pulled Urquidy before he faced Lewis for a third time, inserting reliever Hector Neris with two outs in the sixth inning. With fans on their feet, Lewis drew a six-pitch walk, even if he didn't know it. He remained in the batter's box after he watched ball four, and home-plate umpire Jansen Visconti had to remind Lewis he was free to take his base, drawing a laugh from the 24-year-old rookie.
The sixth inning ended with the Twins in a one-run deficit after Max Kepler was called out on strikes — pitch tracking systems said the pitch was too far inside — while Lewis was in the process of swiping second base. The called third strike cost Kepler a chance to hit with a runner in scoring position in a full count, and Correa loomed on deck.
The Twins didn't have another batter reach base. The last pitch, to Kepler, was another called third strike.
