PITTSBURGH -- Even with the degree of difficulty turned up to 10, the Twins bullpen almost pulled off one of their best performances of the year. Instead, they came up two outs short.
Working on a pitch count as he returns from injury, Taj Bradley searched for his command all night and was done after four innings. The short outing left Minnesota’s bullpen -- down all three of its primary long relief options -- needing to cover 15 outs against a resurgent Pirates team. They almost did it.
Instead, Bryan Reynolds hit a two-run, one-out, walk-off home run in the ninth off Taylor Rogers, sending the Twins to a gut-punch 6-5 loss to the Bucs in manager Derek Shelton’s return to the city where he managed for five-plus seasons.
“All the bullpen guys doing well… to kind of go wreck that, it stinks a little extra,” said Rogers, who had gone eight consecutive outings without allowing a run.
The winning rally started with an infield single by Spencer Horwitz. Rogers struck out Brandon Lowe but got too much of the plate with a 2-2 sinker to Reynolds, and the longtime Pirate made him pay.
It was an unfortunate capper to what had been a superb night for the Twins bullpen, one that was needed because Bradley was on a short leash in his second start back from the injured list. Working with exceptional stuff and unusually high velocity, Bradley had a difficult time locating his fastball and needed 87 pitches to get through four innings.
“I just felt a little inconsistent,” he said. “I didn’t really have one pitch to pitch consistently with and find the zone with. I feel like that would have taken me further in the game and had quicker at-bats. I just felt like not one pitch was there where I could strike it consistently back to back.”
He struck out six and walked two and seemed to be getting closer in his last inning, but Shelton said there was no thought to sending Bradley out for the fifth.
“We were only going to run him to 90 (pitches) either way just because it was his second start back and he threw 73 in the last one,” Shelton said.
That meant it was going to be a tough task for the Twins bullpen. Earlier in the day Friday, they had placed rookie Kendry Rojas on the injured list and optioned Travis Adams to Triple-A St. Paul, removing two of their multiple-inning relievers. Simeon Woods Richardson, the other candidate for such an assignment, was unavailable after making a spot start Thursday.
And for four innings, they did all that could be asked. Right-hander Eric Orze got five outs, three by strikeout, to settle a game that was chaotic in the early going -- nine of the 11 total runs scored in the first three innings. Yoendrys Gomez picked up the next two outs, and Anthony Banda got the game into the eighth inning despite a pair of walks.
Rookie Cody Laweryson pitched around what could’ve been an incredibly costly error to escape a huge jam in the eighth inning. On the day he was reinstated from the injured list, Laweryson escaped a second and third, no-out threat to keep the Twins' lead intact going into the ninth.
In the end, though, it was just too much as the offense didn’t add on against a hard-throwing Pirates relief corps.
“Taylor just missed his spot,” said Shelton. “We played good baseball. We got out of the jam in the eighth. Cody did a really good job getting out of the jam in the eighth but we just made a mistake in the middle of the plate and he capitalized on it.”