Guillermo Mota is not good these days. In his last 8.3 innings, he's surrendered six earned runs. His era in the month of June is 6.48. Perhaps he's tired from all the use he got in April and May, months where he was lights out in the bullpen. Either way, it comes as no surprise that Mota was the guy who served up the go-ahead dinger in the Brewers loss friday night.
Ahead 0-2 on Joe Mauer with two out in the eighth, Mota couldn't put him away. On the next pitch, Mauer deposited the ball into the centerfield bleachers giving the Twins their 10th consecutive victory.
The good news is both the Cubs and Cardinals lost last night as well, the bad news being the Crew were unable to gain any ground on those teams.
Parra and Sheets round out the Twins series, goes without saying, but two wins and a 4-2 record on the trip heading into Arizona would go a long ways.
2 comments:
Didn't you just get the feeling that once Braun just barely couldn't get to that foul ball by Mauer that he was going to ruin it for the Crew?
The 0-2 pitch Mota made to Mauer was not as "good" as other would like you to believe. I don't care that Mauer is a lefty, you can still throw a slider 0-2. You throw it low enough that if you hang it, it's crossing his shins, if not it's in the dirt. I don't like throwing an 0-2 fastball in that case. The pitch overall wasn't good. It wasn't as high as Kendall wanted it, so Mauer didn't have to climb the ladder all that much, and it caught way too much of the plate. If you're going to go with high heat, make sure it's chin level. Mota tossed him a letters high fastball that was out over the plate. Any major league hitter is going to tattoo that.
The simple fact is Mota has struggled heavily these past few weeks and looks to be fatigued from being overused in April and May.
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