MINNEAPOLIS – In his start on Saturday, Zebby Matthews threw what was arguably the worst outing of his career, going three innings and allowing 12 Cubs to reach on three walks and nine hits that turned into a 10-1 loss for the Twins.
On Friday night at Target Field against the Athletics, Matthews looked more like himself. He didn’t allow mistakes on two-strike counts, his velo topped 97 mph 11 times and he didn’t allow a hit through 4 1/3 innings. What wasn’t normal in the Twins' 2-0 loss to the A’s were the swings and misses he generated. His final line was two runs on three hits with three walks in six innings.
“The last start I left a lot of two-strike pitches in the zone, and they were able to hit it,” Matthews said postgame. “I was trying to push out on two strikes; some of them were a little too far, but yeah, just trying to make that adjustment from the last start. Maybe again, too far on some of them, but based on where we were last start, that was a focus there."
Matthews only induced five whiffs on 43 swings, which limited him to one strikeout, his lowest in a start this season, despite the velocity topping out at 98.2 mph.
The A’s rallied for a couple of runs in the fifth and sixth innings, the first coming off a Lawrence Butler sacrifice fly to center field in the fifth. Then Tyler Soderstrom cashed in his 49th RBI of the season in the sixth, scoring Henry Bolte, who led off the inning with a single, to make it 2-0.
“Chicago was rough,” Matthews said, “but just trying to keep attacking hitters, try not to overthink anything after a bad outing. Those will happen. You've just got to respond well. I thought I did.”
The Twins' lineup didn’t go without opportunities against A’s lefty Jacob Lopez and the bullpen. They had runners on second and third in the fourth and the bases loaded in the sixth for third baseman Brooks Lee. But both times, Lee was unable to cash in runs, popping out to Jacob Wilson at shortstop to end the fourth, and grounding out to Tommy White at third for a 5-3 double play to end the sixth. He also hit into a double play to end the game.
“Today that wasn’t fun to hit off of,” Lee said. “I’ve seen [Lopez] relatively well, but for whatever reason tonight, he had the fastball working up top; he was locating and then threw the cutter. I felt like a lot of us were under it, especially early on. We hit a few balls hard, but they got caught.”
The Twins were 0-for-8 with runners in scoring position and left eight men on base. Lopez is the latest start in a string from lefties who have kept the Twins' lineup at bay. Since July 17, Minnesota has slashed .229/.283/.341 against southpaws.
“We’ve done a good job previous to that; we just got pitched to tonight,” Twins manager Derek Shelton said. “[Lopez] did a good job with the cutter; he played the fastball off it, hit the top of the zone. It’s just something we’ve got to continue to grind on.”
The Twins are three games below .500 (51-54) and are three games back of the Guardians for the final AL Wild Card spot.