MINNEAPOLIS -- Hard or soft, early or late, the Pirates couldn't come up with a single outcome to their liking on this five-game road trip, losing all three to the Cubs then both games here at Target Field, including a 7-3 rout by the Twins on this Tuesday afternoon.
The hit that got everything started against Joe Musgrove wasn't a well-struck shot to the gap or home run, but instead this roller through the shift:
"Thought I was getting out of there," Musgrove said.
In a normal infield alignment, that would be a tailor-made, inning-ending double play. But Rosario, usually a dead-pull hitter, rolled it through the vacated spot.
Musgrove had been in control the entire at-bat, with Rosario flailing to stay alive. Even the swing he put on that changeup which was well outside the zone was pretty lackluster:
Instead, it got the Twins on the board and kept the rally going.
Musgrove would give up two more runs in the inning on a well-placed Miguel Sano double, and he ended up throwing 33 pitches in the first and 28 more in the second. Those 61 pitches were the most thrown through two innings by anyone in Major League Baseball this season, and his 3 1/3-inning line would show five runs on six hits and five walks.
"I think it impacted it significantly," Derek Shelton said about his early pitch count. "He had to grind the rest of the way."
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