PITTSBURGH -- Saturday afternoon likely produced a feeling of déjà vu for Twins fans across the country.
Just a day removed from starter Joe Ryan getting issued a loss despite allowing just a pair of runs over seven innings, right-hander Simeon Woods Richardson became the second Twin in as many days to fall victim to a lack of run support. The rookie dealt one of the finest outings of his career but was instead handed his first loss of the season in a 4-0 defeat to the Pirates at PNC Park.
Woods Richardson allowed just one run over a career-high 6 1/3 innings while striking out six. He was incredibly efficient, throwing 69 strikes on 97 pitches without allowing a walk. At one point in the middle of his outing, he retired 12 of 13 hitters, with the only baserunner coming via a self-inflicted fielding error.
“[Simeon] was phenomenal,” Twins manager Rocco Baldelli said. “I thought he was on top of his game. That’s as hard as I’ve ever seen Sim throw a baseball. All of his pitches were crisp. He commanded the ball well, and he set a great tone for our team. I mean, what else do you want? He went out there and just put up zero after zero.”
Pitching is not where the team’s recent struggles have come. The problems lie solely at the plate. The Twins simply haven't supplied enough offense to sustain any kind of success, and Saturday afternoon, they let yet another dominant outing fall by the wayside, as their scoreless innings streak increased to 22.
“You can’t call it a truly winning effort when you lose the game, but that’s a winning start,” Baldelli said. “I mean, that’s a start you want to get from your guy every time.”
Woods Richardson was far from perfect, surrendering six scattered hits, but he was able to keep the ball on the ground while limiting hard-hit balls, allowing himself to work in and out of jams. His lone blemish came with one out in the seventh inning, when he left a changeup over the plate that Pirates first baseman Rowdy Tellez sent to center for a home run to break a scoreless tie. The following batter, catcher Yasmani Grandal, reached on a throwing error by third baseman Royce Lewis, which promptly ended Woods Richardson’s outing.
“Left [it] up,” Woods Richardson said. “Poorly executed. [Tellez is] a professional hitter, and I gave him a cookie. Professional hitters do something with that.”
Saturday marked the first time in the 23-year-old’s career that Baldelli gave him the nod to pitch into the seventh inning. Despite the home run, the effort would have been more than enough to earn a win on most nights.
“I wouldn't say [I was] feeling good, I would just say [I was] trying to find the consistency of mechanics and finding the consistency of keeping my team in the game,” Woods Richardson said. “When it’s a tight scoring game like that, all I’m worried about doing is giving my team the best chance to win.”
Woods Richardson found his groove in the fourth inning when he struck out Ke’Bryan Hayes, Nick Gonzales and Tellez in order on three of his best sliders of the day. And while his slider claimed the most victims at the plate, it was hard not to notice the increase in velocity Woods Richardson showed on his other pitches during his outing.
“Again, I’m just trying to be in the game as much as I can be,” Woods Richardson said. “Be present in the game and execute pitches. It could be 100 [mph], but it has to be a strike, you know?”
While the righty is pitching in his third big league season, Saturday was only his 12th MLB game and his 11th start. Between the highs and lows, Woods Richardson is just trying to soak up as much as he can from those around him.
“Honestly, it’s just learning from everybody else, learning from all the other starters, learning how to communicate with them, how to read their minds, how to read their thought process,” he said. “Asking questions [like], 'How do you feel? What did you feel? What did you see?' [I’m] just trying to learn my role and soak up as much information as I can. That’s my only goal right now.”