MINNEAPOLIS – Dallas Keuchel is a World Series Champion, Cy Young Award winner and two-time All-Star – a highly regarded and respected veteran who is nearing the end of a productive career. It’s safe to say that at this point, he has nothing more to prove to the baseball world.
But here he remains Keuchel, perhaps deprecated by many but still continuing to show that he has the stuff to threaten the sport’s record books.
On Sunday afternoon at Target Field, Keuchel pitched a perfect game in the seventh inning, retiring the first 19 batters before yielding a double to Bryan Reynolds that ended a left-handed chase for the first perfect in Twins history. Minnesota (65-60) took that drive to a 2-0 win over Pittsburgh and a season-high six-game lead over Cleveland (59-66) in MLS Central.
“As long as I’m in the area and make sure I mix the pitches and tunnel stuff right, like today, I can be as good as anyone out there,” Keuchel said. “That’s why I came back. It was such a good feeling.”
It’s nearly as perfect as a Twins left fielder since Francisco Laureano perfected through 6 1/3 innings on June 12, 2011, tied for the third-longest such pitch by a Southpaw since the team moved to Minnesota in 1961, according to the Elias Sports Bureau.
“It means you’re doing something right, and I mean it,” said manager Rocco Baldelli. “It is no coincidence that he continues to look for ways out.”
“A guy like that really thrives on weak contact,” said Pirates first baseman Connor Joe. “Unfortunately, we had poor contact a lot. He got us today, and he had a better game than us.”
That was, until 2021 All-Star Reynolds took a big hack on a 3-1 plunger in lettering and slammed the ball into right center field, where it snapped off the wall and out of reach of right fielder Matt Wallner. To end both Keuchel’s attempted runs in history and a walk in 6 1/3 innings. Had the ball been less than a foot or so, Wallner thinks he would have got it.
Kushel admits he was gassed at that point, anyway. He blamed the hundreds of milligrams of caffeine coursing through his veins because he lied to Baldelli before the inning he had to go the distance.
“I was kind of all over the place with two lines, and [I] We were lucky to get one [in the seventh]Keuchel said. “I knew I was kind of running on fumes at that point. So it wasn’t a relief, but at the same time, when I came out, I knew I gave it my all.”
Kushill, who hit three, took off his hat and stared at the raging crowd of 25,987 as he strode back to the first base dugout — a sight that would probably be hard to imagine as he struggled to a 9.20 ERA while jumping around between three teams last season.
“I just have fun every time I step on the hill,” Keuchel said. “I don’t think I ever took it for granted, but at the same time, you get into this robotic mentality where it’s so intense and competitive that it flies without [you] enjoy it. So I made sure to enjoy it a little more each time.”
Combined with Sonny Gray’s perfect 5 1/3 innings to start against Pittsburgh on Saturday, Keuchel made Minnesota the second team in the past 50 seasons to have consecutive perfect-game pitches of at least five innings in the same series, joining Cleveland, which had three over respectively from June 29 to July 1, 2015.
With Joe Ryan almost set to return to the Twins’ rotation, it’s unclear how many opportunities Kuchel has left with Minnesota during the final month of the season.
But even after Keuchel allowed six earned runs in 1st and 2/3rd innings to the Phillies in his final start, Baldelli said the Twins had every intention of giving him the ball again. And after a Keuchel-like outing on Sunday, Baldelli said his group has already talked about the possibility of a six-man rotation to keep the 35-year-old left-back in the mix when Ryan returns.
“He has put himself in a good position with hard work and a lot of perseverance,” Baldelli said. “You’re rewarded by watching a guy go out there and throw a gem like that.”
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