The...Dallas Keuchel game???

Twins 2
Pirates 0

That's baseball.

When I saw that I was going to be going to a Dallas Keuchel start on Sunday, I was not optimistic. Keuchel had toiled in St. Paul for a while before getting a call-up. He had a decent start against Arizona, before getting lit up by the Phillies. It wasn't even a certainty that he would get another start. 

But they tossed him back out there against the Pirates, and he took a perfect game into the 6th inning. 

Once Keuchel finally got that elusive first strikeout things were off. Maybe what he was throwing was slop, but he was getting lots of weak contact and was cruising.

As for the issue of run support, that was slow to come. But a pair of singles and an Edouard Julien sac fly pushed one run across and Julien doubled home another. That was it. Other than that there were 16 more strikeouts, including, hilariously, 3 more from Joey Gallo in 3 at bats after being inserted as a pinch hitter.

But the 2 runs was enough. Keuchel took the perfecto into the 6th, including a few tense 3 ball counts. But then a flyball to right hit off the wall just a little too high for Matt Wallner to make a play and that was done. Keuchel still got a deserved ovation. 

Griffin Jax and Caleb Thielbar posted a couple scoreless innings of relief. Jhoan Duran got the 9th. I was still invested on at least seeing my 3rd in person one-hitter, but then with 2 outs Pittsburgh got a cheap little infield hit to ruin that. Jerks. 

But the Twins won, and boosted the division lead to 6 over Cleveland. The Guardians will not be pulling off some late season surge this time. Even with the Twins myriad issues the division is as close to cinched as it can be in August. 

So why not keep giving Dallas Keuchel some run? 

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