Minnesota twins made a shocking statement on their current superstar…
Louie Varland has rarely pitched better than he did on Tuesday. Unfortunately, Caleb Thielbar has maybe never been worse.
Varland, the North St. Paul native, charged back into the big leagues with five shutout innings, giving up only one hit and striking out three. But Richfield native Thielbar faced four batters and each of them scored, sending the Twins to a 5-4 loss to the Rockies at Target Field.
The loss ended the Twins’ winning streak at two games, and put them in jeopardy of losing a series to the Rockies for only the third time in the teams’ history.
Varland, making a one-day appearance on the Twins roster to give the starting rotation an extra day off, served up his best outing of the season by far, needing only 63 pitches to rip through the Rockies’ lineup for five innings. In doing so, he shaved more than two runs off his ERA, though it still stands at 7.06 due to four disastrous April starts that got him demoted to Class AAA.
But Twins manager Rocco Baldelli decided not to allow Varland to face Colorado hitters for a third time and summoned Thielbar to face the top of the Rockies’ order.
It didn’t go well.
Charlie Blackmon ripped a fastball 102 mph into right field for a single. Brenton Doyle took a fastball a foot above the strike zone for a nine-pitch walk. And Ezequiel Tovar blasted a belt-high fastball 107 mph into the bleachers in left-center, a three-run homer. Left in to face lefthanded Ryan McMahon, Thielbar left a low fastball over the middle of the plate, and it bounced off the wall in right field for a double.
