Gordon gives Twins needed boost in trying time

DETROIT -- There’s already been plenty of attrition during this recent stretch for the Twins, and there’s more to come when the club heads across the border to Toronto to complete this road trip.

The Twins have spoken of the need for their depth players to step up as the offense has fallen silent, and on Thursday, Nick Gordon stepped up to fill that void with an all-around effort. Still, his two hits, run scored, RBI, stolen base, diving catch and outfield assist weren’t enough to give the Twins a victory, as Daz Cameron’s late two-run blast off Emilio Pagán swung the outcome of a 3-2 loss at Comerica Park -- their fourth loss in the five-game series against the Tigers.

“I love having a guy like Nicky G on the team, because he can impact the game in so many different ways,” said Twins starter Chris Archer. “And he [darn] near impacted it in every way possible today. … I mean, he displayed five tools.”

Those tools came into play at a time of deep need for the Twins, whose scoreless streak had extended to 22 innings by the time Gordon stepped to the plate for the first time in the third inning.

After Tigers starter Alex Faedo had retired the first six Twins in order, Gordon led off the frame with a solid single to right-center field and scored on Gio Urshela’s double into the left-field corner, erasing Minnesota’s early 1-0 deficit. The next time Gordon came to the plate was in the fourth, when he crushed a two-out double to the gap in left-center, bringing home Trevor Larnach to give the Twins their first lead since the first game of Tuesday’s doubleheader.

Gordon’s final at-bat in the eighth inning, too, resulted in a solidly hit drive to the warning track in left-center at 99.2 mph. Though it didn’t drop to give him his first three-hit game of the year, the 26-year-old utility man’s seventh multihit effort of 2022 still provided the most punch this lineup had seen in three games.

“Honestly, [I’m] just trying to do a job, trying to have good at-bats,” Gordon said. “But it's not too much about the results. It's definitely about having quality at-bats, and that's every single day. No matter what, it's seeing good pitches, swinging at strikes and trying to drive the ball.”

But as Archer mentioned following his first five-inning start of the season, Gordon also offers a different look in the Twins’ lineup. Take, for instance, his ability to swipe a bag in a key spot, as he did in the sixth inning, when he walked then moved to third base with a two-out steal that also forced a throwing error in a one-run game. That marked the Twins’ first steal since May 21.

Just as significant is Gordon’s versatility around the diamond that helps the Twins weather a stretch like this in which they’ve lost three players to the COVID injured list and have both Byron Buxton and Max Kepler needing occasional days off, opening spots in both the infield and outfield.

Even as he’s learned to play the outfield on the fly in the Majors (Gordon made three outfield appearances among 644 total games as a Minor Leaguer), he has more than held his own and occasionally made standout plays -- of which there were two on Thursday.

When Spencer Torkelson hit a drive down the line in the fourth inning that took a funky hop off the fence in foul territory, Gordon stayed with the carom, made a quick exchange and fired an 83.9 mph strike to second base for his second outfield assist of the season, helping Archer complete an efficient, 11-pitch frame.

And in the eighth, with the Twins nursing a one-run lead, Gordon charged a flare off the bat of Jeimer Candelario that carried a 20 percent catch probability and snared the ball on a dive, keeping the leadoff hitter off base. Though Eric Haase’s subsequent single and Cameron’s homer ultimately swung the game anyway, Gordon certainly did all he could to help the Twins build and maintain their lead -- and on Thursday, it just wasn’t enough.

“Without those plays, we're probably not even in a position to win the game,” Baldelli said. “He competed well all day. Got a bag for us. Set us up for maybe another run. He did a lot. He looked really good at a time when we're calling on him to do some different things.”