The only other time in his career that Griffin Jax struck out 10 batters, he so impressed the Twins, the next time he took the mound was for his major league debut. Which raises the question: What sort of reward did he earn on Tuesday?
The 26-year-old righthander, clearly improving as his confidence and comfort level climb, survived a back-to-back homer hiccup and otherwise shut down the rampaging White Sox offense, whiffing 10 for the first time in the big leagues and outpitching a former Cy Young Award winner in a 4-3 Twins victory at Target Field.
"I was pretty proud of myself. This was my best start in the sense that things could have gone really south after those back-to-back home runs," Jax said of Adam Engel and Jose Abreu's matching 400-foot blasts to left-center in the third inning. "Sometimes some young guys fall into the trap of losing it and crumbling in that moment, but I took it upon myself to maintain my composure and just keep attacking."
And if a rookie ending Dallas Keuchel's four-game winning streak against the Twins wasn't improbable enough, wait till you hear about how Keuchel, seemingly coasting to another victory, blew a 3-2 lead.
The Chicago lefthander, a Cy Young winner with Houston in 2015 and the fifth-place finisher in last year's voting, suffered some first-inning wildness that cost him a couple of runs, but he mostly dominated, giving up only three hits through the first five innings. And he quickly retired Mitch Garver and Luis Arraez to open what appeared to be a quiet sixth.
But Miguel Sano, who had drawn only one walk against Keuchel in their previous 28 meetings, watched four balls go by as the wildness returned, bringing Willians Astudillo to the plate. Two pitches later, Keuchel came way inside with a cutter — "Three or four inches inside," he groused — and Astudillo went down to one knee and smacked it before it could get to the plate, pounding it into the bleachers in left field.
The announced crowd of 18,302 erupted as Astudillo hustled around the bases with a two-run go-ahead homer, only his third home run since May 6 and the first of his career against the White Sox.
"The energy was electric. The fans really got into it," said Jax, the 10th Twins rookie pitcher to record double-digit strikeouts in a game and the first since Trevor May in 2014. "Just a really special moment."
Especially to the always-electric Astudillo.
"Oh boy, he talks. He never stays quiet," Sano said. "He says, 'I am the best hitter. I am the best hitter.' He got a great opportunity in the moment to hit a homer for us, and that's what won us the game."
Maybe Astudillo is the best fielder, is the best fielder, too. He embellished his hero credentials in the field two innings later, turning a line drive from 2020 MVP Abreu, who had already homered and doubled, into an inning-ending double play.
But the night belonged to Jax, who owns a 2.66 ERA in his past four starts, three of them Twins victories over first-place teams. And it further cemented his status in the rotation for 2021 and perhaps beyond.
"My two strengths when I'm on the mound are my slider for a strikeout pitch and setting it up with my fastball," Jax said of his rapid development, which on Tuesday included 14 swings-and-misses. "A lot of these hitters, some of their holes include going up underneath the hands, and so I tried to go there a lot tonight. And when I was able to locate and get it there, it helped to open up my slider to the other side of the plate."
