Gray 'unbelievable' with 13 K's in walk-off win 

MINNEAPOLIS -- At the end of Spring Training, Sonny Gray was blunt in his criticism of what he perceived to be the mindset around -- and within -- the Twins’ rotation.

“I feel like we had a group last year that was pretty content with going four innings, and going four innings and five innings is considered a good start,” he said on March 26. “I disagreed with that then. I disagree with that now. But I feel like just the guys that we have aren’t content with it, either.”

On Friday, Gray put his actions behind his words.

The veteran punched the air as he basked in a standing ovation from a sellout crowd following seven spectacular innings, during which he set a new career-high with 13 strikeouts against the defending World Series champions. Though it took some time for the offense to catch up, Jose Miranda’s game-tying knock and Kyle Farmer’s walk-off single in the 10th made sure the Twins took advantage of Gray’s performance in a 3-2 win over the Astros.

“Unbelievable,” Farmer said. “I’ve seen Sonny pitch in ’19, ’20 and ’21 [as teammates with the Reds], and that was probably the best I’ve seen him, today, which is pretty cool.”

It was the best Twins fans have seen in a long time, too -- a perfect way for the crowd of 38,465 to welcome a new season of baseball at Target Field in the 2023 home opener.

Gray’s 13 strikeouts marked the most by a Twins starter since July 13, 2012, when Francisco Liriano fanned 15 in a start against the A’s. Before Friday, the Astros -- notoriously strikeout-averse in recent years -- hadn’t struck out 13 times in a game against an opposing starter since they did so against Trevor Bauer on May 27, 2018.

Gray’s gem lowered the Twins’ rotation ERA to 1.12 (five earned runs allowed in 40 1/3 innings) through seven games.

“I knew early in the game that I was striking a lot of people out,” Gray said. “I just wanted to continue to attack. However you get the outs is however you get the outs, but at the end of the day, strikeouts are what you’re after.”

Without Gray’s exceptional outing, the Twins almost certainly wouldn’t have been in position to come from behind for the victory in the 10th inning, when a one-out walk by Trevor Larnach led to Miranda’s clutch hit, Minnesota's first hit of the game with runners in scoring position following an 0-for-9 start. Following an intentional walk to Donovan Solano, Farmer brought home the winner despite being unable to see the grounder slip through the infield due to the shadows.

“You’re really fighting your vision, you’re fighting good players on the other side of the field, and ultimately, we just didn’t stop putting the ball in the play, finding a barrel when we could,” manager Rocco Baldelli said.

Unlike in Gray’s season debut, when he walked four and fanned one due to a lack of feel, he had his best breaking stuff on Friday, when his curveball and slider combined to generate 14 swinging strikes. Eight of the strikeouts came on the slider, his most with the pitch since 2017, when he started his career with the A’s.

At one point in the fourth and fifth innings, Gray got six consecutive outs via strikeout -- and all of those came on the slider or curve.

“It’s probably the best I’ve seen him spin the ball,” Baldelli said. “The reactions from the hitters, there were a lot of pitches that he threw that they missed by a lot and they couldn’t even get a swing off on.”

With Gray pitching like that, there wasn’t much of a conversation about whether he’d come back out for the seventh inning, already at 87 pitches. He rewarded that confidence with a pair of flyouts and a strikeout to cap his outing at 98 pitches.

That’s something Baldelli will be thrilled to see more often, with his deep rotation allowing him to let starters pitch deeper into games in ways that he perhaps hadn’t felt comfortable with in years past.

“Personally, I don't really care about the narratives,” Baldelli said. “When you have guys going out there and throwing the hell out of the ball and looking strong at the end of their outings, commanding all of their pitches throughout, you want to watch them keep pitching. That fires me up, watching these guys go out there in the fifth, sixth, seventh inning, throwing the ball like that.”