Sonny Gray held the Kansas City Royals scoreless in his first outing of the season, but the veteran starter didn’t feel like the stuff was there, nor the command last week.
Before he took the mound in the Twins’ home opener against the Houston Astros on Friday, he told catcher Christian Vázquez that wouldn’t be the case again.
“He told me, ‘I got you. It’s going to be there, the breaking ball, today,’ ” Vázquez said. “And it (was). Thirteen Ks is a lot.”
Yes, it is.
Gray took a no-decision on Friday but played a big role in the team’s 3-2 10-inning walk-off win against Houston on Friday afternoon on Target Field, setting a career-high with 13 strikeouts in seven strong frames.
Innings after his departure, it was his former Cincinnati Reds teammate Kyle Farmer who would send Twins fans home happy, hitting a single up the middle to bring home Trevor Larnach and send the Twins to their fifth win of the season.
Immediately, Twins fans started celebrating. But Farmer? He wasn’t even sure the ball had gotten through.
“Honestly I didn’t see it because of the shadows,” Farmer said. “I knew I hit it OK and it was up the middle and it got past the pitcher. I was just glad it got through.”
Farmer’s hit came after Jose Miranda had lined a single to right earlier in the inning, bringing home automatic runner Byron Buxton to tie the game.
Prior to a 10th-inning rally, Twins hitters had been held quiet most of the day, scoring once on a wild pitch in the sixth inning to tie the game at 1-1. But they hung around with the defending World Series champions thanks to Gray’s stellar outing.
Leaning heavily on his curveball and slider, Gray carved up the Astros (3-5) en route to his career-high, 13-strikeout performance. It’s the first time a Twins pitcher has struck out that many hitters since Francisco Liriano fanned 15 on July 13, 2012.
“I think the thing was I was mixing the breaking balls a lot,” Gray said. “It was curveballs, sliders, cutters, so I was going with all three. My curveball in the zone, for the most part, was very good and when you’re landing spin, it will force opposing hitters and everyone to then chase the strike to ball.”
Gray, who gave up a run on a pair of hits in the third inning, got 16 whiffs in total, including 14 on those two pitches, per Baseball Savant.
He also racked up a total of 20 called strikes, and let out a rare little show of emotion as he walked off the field following his seventh inning of work.
“I played with Sonny in ’19, ’20 and ’21, and today was probably the best I’ve seen him in a long time,” Farmer said. “He dominated. All of his pitches were working.”
Twins starters now boast a 1.12 earned-run average through the first seven games of the season and opponents have hit just .165 against them. Opponents have scored one or zero runs against them in all seven games.
And while the Twins (5-2) couldn’t capitalize on Kenta Maeda and Pablo López’s performances in their last two games, they didn’t let Gray’s go for naught on Friday.
“He was just spectacular,” manager Rocco Baldelli said. “ … It felt like every pitch he threw did almost exactly what he was trying to do — at least that’s what it looked like from where I was sitting. And we needed that. We needed an effort like that.”
