HOUSTON – The American League’s reliever of the month for May is having a rough June.
Jhoan Duran, who gave up only one run during his award-winning previous month, has put runners on base in five consecutive appearances in June, and it has cost him and the Twins. Less than 24 hours after entering a tied game and giving up the walk-off game-winner, Duran blew a save for the second time this season, and the Astros completed a weekend sweep of the Twins with a 2-1 victory in 10 innings.
Trying to protect a 1-0 lead, Duran walked the first batter he faced, Astros leadoff hitter Jeremy Peña, on four pitches. Duran struck out Yainer Diaz, but on Duran’s first pitch to Jose Altuve, Peña stole second. Peña then moved to third when Altuve — reaching way out of the strike zone to make contact — dribbled an infield hit to shortstop, easily beating Carlos Correa’s desperate throw. First baseman Victor Caratini followed with a fly ball to the warning track in left field, scoring Peña with the tying run.
The Twins’ luck didn’t improve in the 10th, either. Cole Sands easily retired the first two batters he faced, keeping courtesy runner Jake Meyers on second base. But Mauricio Dubón lifted a deep fly ball to the front of the Twins bullpen in left, and Willi Castro was unable to make the catch, extending the Twins’ losing streak to four. The play was ruled a hit.
“I don’t know what happened there. I think I should have caught that ball,” Castro said of the final play, which came at one of Daikin Park’s most awkward spots for a fielder. The fence is about 4 feet behind pillars that jut out onto the field, so Castro jumped sideways, into the side of a pillar, as the ball came down. It glanced off his glove and rolled away as Meyers jogged home.
“I saw the ball. I don’t know if it hit the wall before I jumped, or if I jumped [too early]. But yeah, I should have caught that ball,” Castro said. “Those corners back there are hard to even know how far you are from them.”
His manager, a former outfielder who played three games in this ballpark, understood the challenge. “It was right there in that corner, that cranny out there. It’s obviously a very unusual situation in left field, [but] he had a chance,” Rocco Baldelli said. “It would have been a nice play if he was able to make it.”
Still, blaming a closer who gave up a a softly struck single or an outfielder trying to navigate one of the most unusual outfield walls in the league probably misses the point of this loss — or all of them in the three-game series.
