Royals 3, Twins 1: BREAKING — Twins Still Bad Against Southpaws

After showing some good life in games two and three against the Orioles, the bats fell silent once again with left-handed Kris Bubic on the mound. For seemingly the 10th season in a row, the Twins simply can’t manage to string together any offense left-handed starting pitchers. The Twins had some early traffic with a hit by Austin Martin who was then immediately picked off, continuing Martin’s trend of showing good flashes immediately by a boneheaded mistake that makes you question how long he’s been playing baseball.

Luke Keaschall also walked in the inning but didn’t manage to score. The Twins’ lone run came off the bat of Matt Wallner, who stroked his first dong of the season in the second inning. With the obvious small sample caveat, he’s looked much more in control against left-handers so far this year, with the homer today adding to his two walks he took against Trevor Rogers in the opener.

From that point on, the Twins only managed two hits for the next seven innings, with the latter of those coming with two outs in the ninth. Needless to say, the offense did not do their part today. Things were better on the pitching front.

Simeon Woods Richardson gave up some hard contact but was able to limit the damage, as he typically does. His new splitter looked particularly strong, keeping the Royals sluggers off balance for most of the day. SWR’s only real “mistake” came on a 2-1 slider to nine-hole hitter Kyle Isbel, and even that was a pretty good pitch that Isbel just got the better of.