The Minnesota Twins will have ace Jose Berrios on the mound on Sunday afternoon at Philadelphia as they try to win their third consecutive series to begin the season.
Thanks to three off days, Berrios (1-0, 1.84) will be making his third start in just eight games for the Twins. The 2018 All-Star struck out a Minnesota Opening Day record 10 batters over 7 2/3 innings in a 2-0 victory over the Indians but came away with a no decision in his second start on Tuesday, a 5-4 win in 10 innings at Kansas City.
Minnesota took two out of three at home over the defending American League Central Division champion Indians and then swept a two-game series with the host Royals. Now they’ll try and take two out of three from the Phillies before heading to New York for a two-game series with the Mets.
Right hander Zach Eflin (1-0, 0.00 ERA), who struck out nine and yielded just three hits and a walk over five innings in his season debut, an 8-2 win Tuesday at Washington, will take the mound for the Phillies.
The Twins bounced back from a sloppy 10-4 loss to Philadelphia in Friday night’s opener when Minnesota pitchers walked nine batters and the Twins also committed three errors to hand the Phillies a 6-2 loss on Saturday afternoon. It marked the first time in seven games this season that Philadelphia failed to score at least five runs in a game.
“This is a fun place to play right now,” first-year Twins manager Rocco Baldelli said. “The atmosphere is good, the fans are certainly into the game and paying attention to everything going on. They have a good team. There’s reason to be excited in this city. It makes it good for us also to go on the road and play in environments like this. It really locks you in, and that energy does change the game sometimes.”
Max Kepler and Willians Astudillo hit back-to-back solo home runs in a three-run third inning and Eddie Rosario hit a three-run pinch-hit home run off the foul pole in right in the ninth for some key insurance runs. Center fielder Byron Buxton, making his first start since running into the wall on Tuesday night at Kansas City, singled, walked, stole a base, scored a run and also threw out Bryce Harper trying to score on a flyout in the sixth.
“We had to make plays today,” Baldelli said. “We had to make pitches and we needed big hits to win this game, and our guys did that. They did all that.”
Philadelphia’s bullpen continued to struggle in the loss. Seranthony Dominguez gave up a walk, hit a batter and then gave up Rosario’s home run in the ninth. Dominguez has a 15.43 in three appearances this season, allowing four runs in 2 1/3 innings while closer David Robertson, who pitched a scoreless ninth in Friday’s win over the Twins, is 0-1 with a 12.00 ERA after four games, allowing six hits, four runs and five walks in just three innings.
“I think you want everything smooth from the start,” Phillies manager Gabe Kapler said after Saturday’s loss. “It hasn’t been from a bullpen perspective but there have been some bright spots. We’ve had the opportunity to close the door on their offense a couple of times and we haven’t been able to do it. We need to go back to the drawing board … and just get a game plan together (and) fix it.”
