Red-hot rookie Jose Miranda keeps raking as Twins sweep Royals
Jose Miranda continues to dazzle as a rookie, crushing a two-run homer in his first at-bat Thursday to pave the path to a 4-0 Twins victory over and a sweep of the Royals.
Miranda's blast, his 12th of the season, put the Twins up 2-0 and supported by a tremendous bullpen game after starting pitcher Tyler Mahle left in the third inning with what the Twins are calling "right shoulder fatigue."
Remember the name: Jose Miranda. @Twins | #MNTwins pic.twitter.com/k9wU1HjCha
— Bally Sports North (@BallySportsNOR) August 17, 2022
Miranda's batting average sunk to .094 on May 18. Since then he's raised his average about .200 points and is nearing .300 for the season (.286 after today's game).
Since May 19 Miranda is slashing .330/.327/.742 with 11 homers, 13 doubles, 48 RBIs, 11 walks, five hit-by-pitch and 28 runs. When you break it down month-by-month it's eye-popping.
- May: .176/.208/.532
- June: .306/.342/.856
- July: .353/.405/1.008
- August: .322/.384/.842
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Mahle, whose fastball averaged 89.2 mph Thursday compared to his season average of 93.4 mph, left the game with one out in the third inning. Emilio Pagan finished the third and fourth innings and was replaced by Griffin Jax, who got through the fifth and the sixth with the Twins still on top 4-0.
Jhoan Duran allowed back-to-back singles to start the seventh and was bailed out by Gilberto Celestino's sliding catch for the second out. Duran then struck out Michael Taylor to get out of the jam.
Michael Fulmer gave up a couple of hits but had a clean eighth and Trevor McGill mowed down the Royals with a 1-2-3 ninth to wrap up Minnesota's third straight win.
It's the first time this season the Twins have won two straight games by shutout.
With Cleveland and Chicago yet to play Wednesday night, the Twins are a half-game from the top of the AL Central.
Up next: Twins vs. Rangers, 7:10 p.m. Friday at Target Field
Title: Bring Me The Sports co-owner, editor Email: joe@bringmethenews.com Twitter: @JoeBMTN Education: Southwest Minnesota State University Location: Minneapolis, Minnesota Expertise: All things Minnesota sports Nelson has covered Minnesota sports for two decades, starting his media career in sports radio. He worked at small market Minnesota stations in Marshall and St. Cloud before joining one of the nation's highest-rated sports stations, KFAN-FM 100.3 in the Twin Cities. There, he was the producer of the top-rated mid-morning sports show with Minnesota Vikings announcer Paul Allen. His radio experience helped blossom a career as a sports writer, joining Minneapolis-based Bring Me The News in 2011. Nelson and Adam Uren became co-owners of Bring Me The News in 2018 and have since more than tripled the site's traffic and launched Bring Me The Sports in cooperation with the Sports Illustrated/FanNation umbrella. Nelson has covered the Super Bowl and numerous training camps, NFL combines, the MLB All-Star Game and Minnesota playoff games, in addition to the day-to-day happenings on and off the field of play. Nelson also has extensive knowledge of non-sports subjects, including news and weather. He works closely with Bring Me The News meteorologist Sven Sundgaard to produce a bevy of weather and climate information for Minnesota readers. Nelson helped launch and manage the Bring Me The News Radio Network, which provided more than 50 radio stations around Minnesota with daily news, sports and weather reports from 2011-17.