Jul. 5—KANSAS CITY — A road trip — and losing streak — that started with one of Kenta Maeda‘s worst starts of the year ended on Sunday with one of his best.
Maeda was nearly unhittable as the Twins stopped their five-game slide with a 6-2 win over the Royals on Sunday afternoon at Kauffman Stadium, salvaging the final game of an otherwise disappointing road swing through Chicago and Kansas City.
“That is the Kenta Maeda that we’ve seen a lot of,” manager Rocco Baldelli said. “Shoot, all the way around, no matter which way you look at this, it’s a marvelous outing. He got even stronger as the outing went on. His split and slider looked great.”
Capping off a road trip in which the Twins’ (34-48) starting pitching had been shaky, Maeda came back on Sunday and was dominant. He seemed to know it, too, at one point strutting confidently off the mound before strike three had even been called on Royals shortstop Nicky Lopez to end the fifth inning.
Maeda allowed just two hits to the Royals (35-48) in his outing and retired the final 13 batters before departing after six innings and 97 pitches.
His 10 strikeouts — he had at least one in each inning he pitched and two in each of the final four frames — set a new season high. And after walking five in his last start and struggling to find the strike zone at times, Maeda walked Whit Merrifield, the first batter he faced on Sunday, and then didn’t issue another free pass in his outing.
“I think all of my pitches were working today,” Maeda said. “Including the last outing and then just throughout the season, I’ve lost my command here and there, allowing multiple walks, and I think today was just getting in the right frame of mind and aggressively attacking the strike zone is what led to the result today.”
And after seeing a slight dip in his velocity in his last start — Maeda’s four-seamer averaged 89.7 miles per hour on Tuesday— his fastball velocity was up on Sunday. It averaged 91.8 mph, a full mile per hour higher than his season average.
“I felt really strong with my fastball today,” he said. “It’s really been awhile since the last time I felt this way.”
Maeda had plenty of run support from his teammates behind him as the Twins took an early lead in the third inning thanks to some heads-up base running from Luis Arraez, who singled, advanced on a wild pitch and then stole third before scoring on a Trevor Larnach knock.
Larnach would drive in Arraez again in the ninth inning as part of a two-hit day for him and a three-hit, three-run day for Arraez atop the Twins’ lineup.
In between those two RBI hits, Max Kepler hit just his second home run since May 23, Jorge Polanco hit a two-run blast from the right side of the plate and lefty Alex Kirilloff blasted a ball to center off fellow lefty Richard Lovelady.
“Each one of those is a little something different, but obviously when you get a pitching performance like that, you just need a few big swings in a game to give yourself some runs,” Baldelli said. “That cushion that we talked about and giving ourselves a little bit of leeway; that’s exactly what it looks like.”
Not that Maeda needed much leeway with the way he was throwing.
Plus, he had something extra on his side: After testing out the look during practice and deciding he looked good, Maeda wore his socks up high for the first time since high school, a fashion choice made in part to help mix things up during a difficult season for him.
“Throughout the season, I haven’t been pitching extremely well, so I just wanted to try it out, try out something new, try different things and it just worked,” Maeda said.