Shoemaker superb; Twins continue 'battling'

MINNEAPOLIS -- The Twins have hoped for some time that they’ve been close to clicking and finally playing to their talent level. Though they didn’t pick up a series win at home against the first-place White Sox on Wednesday, the performance of their pitching staff across the final two games served as yet another indication that better baseball could be around the corner.

At the forefront of that charge, right-hander Matt Shoemaker snapped back to form by allowing two runs to the hot White Sox offense across six strong innings, while the Minnesota bullpen was effective for a second consecutive day. The Twins’ offense just couldn’t mount much of a fight against White Sox ace Lucas Giolito, falling quiet for only two hits during a 2-1 loss at Target Field.

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“We've been playing better baseball even if it doesn't show on the wins and losses,” Nelson Cruz said. “It feels like even the pitchers, you know, the bullpen is doing a really good job. Starters like today. Shoemaker threw the ball remarkable. Unfortunately, they had another great pitcher on the mound, but it shows life.”

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Despite the signs of encouragement over the past few games with timely offense and stronger pitching, the Twins haven’t been able to translate that into momentum on their schedule, as they still haven’t won consecutive games since May 2-3.

If they keep pitching like this, they could soon turn that around.

“When you're facing a team that you know has one of the better offenses in baseball, it's a good challenge for your pitching staff,” Minnesota manager Rocco Baldelli said. “And I think our guys responded well after Game 1 [of the series], came back and probably were a little pissed off a little bit, and came in and pitched well and attacked in the zone.”

The Twins needed a strong outing from Shoemaker considering the injury concerns to their starting rotation, and the right-hander delivered with one of his more impressive starts of the season by holding Chicago to only an RBI infield single by Adam Eaton and a run-scoring knock by Leury García across his 87-pitch outing.

It marked Shoemaker’s second consecutive six-inning appearance, proving significant for a Twins bullpen that had to cover five innings in each of the first two games of the series. Though he allowed five runs in his last start against the A’s, the damage had come on three mistake pitches -- all homers -- in an otherwise effective outing.

Shoemaker didn’t have his best control, with four walks against two strikeouts, but he limited damage and held the Sox to weak contact, with only five of the 21 batted balls he allowed classifying as hard-hit -- his lowest percentage all season.

“Even against Oakland, overall, felt really good,” Shoemaker said. “I feel really close to being really dominant.”

That’s how the team is trending as a whole, too.

Alex Colomé, Caleb Thielbar and Jorge Alcala combined for three scoreless, hitless innings in a close game on Wednesday, following five innings of one-hit ball from the bullpen in Tuesday’s walk-off win. After posting an 8.31 ERA through the end of April, Colomé hasn’t been scored upon in seven May outings spanning 7 2/3 innings and hasn’t allowed a hit since May 5.

Seemingly snakebitten in clutch situations for much of April and early May, the offense has finally started to find its punch late in games, including late, game-swinging homers from Miguel Sanó and Andrelton Simmons against the A’s on Saturday and Sunday, followed by Sanó’s three-homer game and Jorge Polanco’s walk-off single on Tuesday.

Now, the final step is to combine those elements and string together some wins to build forward momentum before it’s too late. The Twins have won consecutive games twice and claimed one series victory since the first week of the season.

The only things that stood between them and a series win over the A’s over the weekend were self-inflicted mistakes on Sunday on two crucial errors from Ben Rortvedt and Josh Donaldson. They can clean those up.

"I think the last game against Oakland, it felt like everything was going like 2019,” Cruz said. “Most of the plays were going in our favor and we came up short.”

And finally, they feel close to a breakthrough.

“No doubt,” Cruz said. “Like I said, the last few games, we showed our battling, you know? Yesterday's game, the games against Oakland, the last two games, and even today, like I said, unfortunately, we ran up into a good pitcher in Giolito."