Perhaps one of most intriguing things to happen during Tuesday’s 8-5 loss to the Boston Red Sox on Tuesday night was a mid-game hug between friends.
With just days to go until the trade deadline on Thursday evening, hug watch is in full effect and so when closer Jhoan Duran embraced bullpen catcher Frank Nigro like usual and it was caught on the team’s television broadcast, the hug made waves across the internet.
No, Duran hasn’t been traded yet — and he might not be. But for a few minutes mid-game, Twins fans were left wondering.
Duran did not pitch on Tuesday, but plenty of his bullpenmates did, as the Twins ran rookie Pierson Ohl out for his major league debut and then followed with a quartet of relievers.
Ohl, who was added to the roster on Tuesday in place of Chris Paddack, whom the Twins traded to the Detroit Tigers a day earlier, started in his place. After a first inning in which he recorded his first, second and third career strikeouts, Ohl got some help from the defense behind him.
Harrison Bader, playing center in place of Byron Buxton whom the Twins placed on the injured list with ribcage inflammation before the game, leapt up and snagged Wilyer Abreu’s deep fly ball, robbing him of his 21st home run of the season. Ohl wasn’t quite as lucky in the third inning, his final frame, when the Red Sox tagged him for four runs, including two on a Trevor Story home run, well beyond the reach of Bader, who again leapt for it.
The Red Sox added a run each off Michael Tonkin, Kody Funderburk and two off Louie Varland, while Twins offense had few answers for Boston starter Lucas Giolito. Giolito lasted six innings in his start, the only run he gave up coming on a Brooks Lee RBI double in the bottom of the fifth inning.
Lee, who had the walk-off hit in the Twins’ win over the Red Sox a night earlier, hit two home runs in the loss driving in all five of the Twins’ runs on a day when he was not even in the starting lineup. In doing so, he became just the sixth Twin to homer from both sides of the plate in a game. The infielder entered in the third inning for shortstop Carlos Correa, who departed after two innings with an illness.
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