The Minnesota Twins will be aiming for a season sweep of six games with the Baltimore Orioles when the teams meet Thursday afternoon.
The Twins own a 10-game winning streak — the longest in the major leagues this season — after sweeping a doubleheader in Baltimore on Wednesday.
“Just all-around good baseball,” said Minnesota infielder Kody Clemens, who belted a go-ahead home run in the eighth inning of Game 2. “We trust one another at the plate and pass the baton to each guy. Just rallied all day.”
Minnesota, which won three games last week at home against Baltimore, prevailed 6-3 and 8-6 in the doubleheader that was contested after a weather-related postponement on Tuesday.
The Orioles have lost eight of their last 10 games.
“You come back (Thursday) and you’ve got a day game,” Orioles manager Brandon Hyde said. “We’ve got to put (Wednesday) behind us. It was a long day, a really disappointing day. We’ve got to flush it and come back (Thursday).”
The Orioles have dipped to a season-worst 11 games below .500. They don’t seem to be responding in clutch situations, as they stranded 16 runners on Wednesday.
Of their 15 total hits in the twin bill, Gunnar Henderson had four of them and Ryan Mountcastle had three.
Minnesota scored 14 runs in the doubleheader, with five of those in the eighth and ninth innings as there was slippage from the Baltimore bullpen.
“Teams are getting hits against us in big spots and we’re having a tough time doing that,” Hyde said.
Clemens joined the Twins in late April, and he is hitting .227 with two homers and six RBIs with his new club.
“Get a good pitch to hit and make sure I get my ‘A’ swing off,” he said.
Baltimore will send right-hander Tomoyuki Sugano (4-2, 2.72 ERA) to the mound on Thursday, hoping he can repeat the type of outing he had Friday in a victory against the Los Angeles Angels. He gave up one run on three hits in 7 1/3 innings.
Sugano has yet to face the Twins in his career. He worked at least seven innings in three of his eight starts and didn’t permit a walk in any of those games, though he has issued at least one walk in his other five starts.
Chris Paddack (1-3, 4.76 ERA) will be charged with extending Minnesota’s winning streak. The right-hander’s best and longest outing of the season came Friday against the San Francisco Giants, when he yielded just one run and three hits in 7 1/3 innings.
Paddack is 2-1 with a 6.19 ERA in three career starts covering 16 innings against the Orioles. He didn’t pitch in the series last week in Baltimore.
The Orioles scored in only two of the 18 innings of the doubleheader, so they bunched their runs but didn’t have much more.
“We’ve had a tough time adding on,” Hyde said. “We’ve talked about that a lot. I thought we created a lot of traffic both games. The big hits were tough to come by for us (other than Cedric Mullins’ grand slam in the nightcap).”
The Twins might have lineup adjustments on Thursday. First baseman Ty France missed a game for the first time this year when he sat out the second half of the doubleheader due to a bruised right foot. He exited the first game shortly after fouling a ball off the foot.
In the second game, Minnesota outfielder Harrison Bader left due to groin tightness. Neither France nor Bader is expected to miss a lengthy stretch.
–Field Level Media
