James Outman made a pair of nice plays in center field on Wednesday, but it was the ball that he couldn’t grab that loomed large in the Twins’ loss.
Bryce Teodosio’s long fly ball landed to the back side of a leaping Outman, going for a leadoff triple in the bottom of the eighth inning. He quickly scored the go-ahead run on a Mike Trout sacrifice fly in the Los Angeles Angels’ 4-3 win over the Twins at Angel Stadium in Anaheim, Calif.
“It’s a tough play,” manager Rocco Baldelli said. “The mentality that I want all of our outfielders to have is to want every ball, want every ball hit at him and want the opportunity to make a great play. We didn’t make it today, unfortunately. It’s part of the game.”
The Twins (64-82) dropped the finale of their six-game road trip after a nice start from Taj Bradley, who pitched into the seventh inning and had his team well positioned to grab a win.
Bradley allowed three runs — all in the third inning and two on a Zach Neto home run — but otherwise turned in a solid performance, allowing just four hits and maintaining his stuff well through his start. Three of those four hits came in that third inning. The only other time he really faced trouble was in the sixth, but he induced an inning-ending double play to keep the score tied.
“(I’m) just thankful they let me go out there,” Bradley said. “I worked hard in that fifth inning, sixth inning too, to stay out there and get the pitches, and keep it at a quality start and keep the team a chance to win after they evened up the score for me going in with that big home run.”
But while Bradley did his part, his teammates had chances against their teammate José Ureña and the Angels’ bullpen that they could not convert.
Trevor Larnach was thrown out in the first inning at the plate for the third out, and in both the third and fourth, the Twins left the bases loaded. They finished 0 for 7 with runners in scoring position, stranding 11 on base.
The Twins scored their three runs via the long ball with Outman’s second home run of the series putting them on the board in the third and Byron Buxton’s 31st blast of the season, an opposite-field shot to right in the sixth to tie the game.
“We had every opportunity today right in front of us. The capitalizing wasn’t there when we needed it, and we know that,” Baldelli said. “That’s one where you feel you keep putting yourself up in that good spot, one guy on, two, three guys on, and you know that if you keep doing that, you’re going to win most of the time.”
Festa update
David Festa’s search for answers continues after meeting with orthopedic surgeon Dr. Keith Meister on Tuesday in Texas.
Meister, Twins head athletic trainer Nick Paparesta said, “feels that (Festa) is suffering from neurological thoracic outlet syndrome,” and has referred him to a thoracic surgeon in the Dallas-area. That doctor is currently out of town, but once he returns and meets with Festa, the Twins will have a better idea of his treatment plan.
Injections are a potential treatment, Paparesta said, as is surgery, which would be the “worst-case scenario.”
This type of thoracic outlet syndrome occurs when “the brachial plexus nerve, which is the nerve of the shoulder … there may be something impeding one of those nerves,” Paparesta said.
Festa, who was near a return after making a rehab start late last month, felt a recurrence of symptoms in his shoulder days later, prompting the Twins to send him to meet with Meister. The starter missed time in April while in Triple-A to allow shoulder inflammation to calm down. He then returned and pitched until July, when he was placed on the injured list.
Briefly
Christian Vázquez (shoulder infection) has been running, lifting, hitting, catching off the Trajekt machine and playing long toss, Paparesta said. The Twins will continue to ramp him up throughout their homestand and then see where he is in his attempt to return. … The Twins have Thursday off and then will send Pablo López, Joe Ryan and Bailey Ober to the mound this weekend against the Arizona Diamondbacks.
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