MINNEAPOLIS — Bailey Ober owns a 2.83 ERA in his 11 starts for the Twins this season, which is really good. If Ober had enough innings to qualify for the ERA title — and he's only about 10 innings shy of it now — he would rank seventh in the American League.
But you know who has pitched even better than Ober? Pretty much every starting pitcher who has faced the Twins' right-hander this season.
Ober turned in his standard just-a-couple-of-mistakes performance on Tuesday, a couple of which carried over the fences at Target Field. But as has become a painful reality for the former 12th-round pick this season, he was outpitched yet again. Kutter Crawford and two Red Sox relievers shut down the Twins, Boston's hitters punished Minnesota's beleaguered bullpen, and the Twins lost for the fifth time in six days, 10-4 at Target Field.
The 11 starting pitchers who have opposed Ober this season have combined to post a 2.43 ERA, and the trend has gotten worse as the season has progressed. The Twins have scored only 27 runs in Ober's 11 starts, and just 10 in his last six starts — four of them coming in his win over Milwaukee last week. For the fourth time in those last six starts, the Twins didn't score a run while Ober was still in the game.
Of course, scoring runs isn't something the Twins do much of these days; their 57 runs scored in June are fewer than all but four teams in the majors. The Twins hit three home runs on Tuesday, including Byron Buxton's first since May 23 — but all of them came after the Twins fell behind by 10 runs. In addition to Buxton's blast, his second hit on the night to end his 0-for-24 skid, Royce Lewis and Max Kepler hit back-to-back shots off two-time Cy Young winner Corey Kluber in the ninth, but they only closed the gap to six runs.
But while the game was still in doubt? A Max Kepler double play that traveled only a couple of feet out of the batter's box snuffed one rally, and back-to-back strikeouts by Edouard Julien and Carlos Correa stranded Ryan Jeffers on third base.
Ober, meanwhile, pitched out of trouble a couple of times, but Adam Duvall smacked a fourth-inning slider 426 feet over the center-field fence. Two batters later, Christian Arroyo got around on a 2-2 fastball above the strike zone and pulled it several rows deep in left field.
Considering the Twins have been held to two runs or less in six of Ober's starts this year, he likely sensed what was coming. He allowed another run in the sixth on three well-placed, not-hit-particularly-hard singles, and Boston added five runs against Brent Headrick and two more against Oliver Ortega.
Perhaps the most interesting part of the game after Ober departed was the spectacle of the Twins' ninth-inning player shuffle: Royce Lewis playing shortstop, Joey Gallo moving to center field, Donovan Solano taking over at third base, Christian Váquez manning first base and utility man Willi Castro soft-tossing nine pitches from the mound, none of them exceeding 54 mph.
