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Milone makes case to stay in rotation, despite eventual Twins loss
In one week, Ervin Santana will be pitching in the Minnesota Twins' rotation.
Tommy Milone hopes he will be, too.
The Twins left-hander made yet another case for Minnesota to keep him in the rotation when Santana returns from his 80-game suspension next week. Milone tossed six scoreless innings Sunday against Milwaukee, although it came in a 5-3 Twins loss after the bullpen couldn't pick up where Milone left off.
"Tommy was solid," said Twins manager Paul Molitor. "He put up a lot of zeroes for us and gave us a chance. I was hoping that when he came out of the game we could get him a run and get him the win. It was looking good. But the Brewers have played us tough, obviously, winning four out of six."
Since he was recalled from Triple-A Rochester at the beginning of June, Milone has been more than solid for the Twins. He's allowed two or fewer earned runs in all five of his starts this month, four of which lasted six or more innings. In his last five starts, Milone is 2-0 with a 2.03 ERA, 22 strikeouts and seven walks.
Milone's pitch count climbed high in Sunday's effort, as he needed 99 pitches to get through six frames. But Milone didn't get into much trouble. Milwaukee had two runners on base with two outs in the second before Milone got pitcher Mike Fiers to fly out to right to end the inning.
Milone then went on to retire 11 straight Brewers hitters -- including three strikeouts in the fifth inning -- before a two-out walk to Ryan Braun and a double one batter later by Carlos Gomez. Yet Braun was unable to score from first on the play, and Milone induced an inning-ending groundout of Adam Lind to escape the jam.
"He throws two-seamers outside, and a great changeup," Gomez said of Milone. "My second at-bat, I was looking for that changeup and he threw me a curveball. He kept us off-balance the whole day. That's what made today so tough."
Minnesota's offense didn't do much for Milone, but the Twins did score a run in the top of the seventh after he escaped the sixth. Eduardo Escobar's sacrifice fly to shallow left field scored Joe Mauer from third for a 1-0 lead. That temporarily put Milone in position for his fifth win, but the Twins' bullpen gave the run right back in the bottom of the seventh. Four more runs -- a pair of two-run homers off Casey Fien -- made Milone's start a bit of a moot point.
Scoring runs has been a struggle of late for the Twins. At the same time, the starting pitching has stabilized. Such was the case Sunday as a solid effort by Milone wasn't backed up with much offense.
"We didn't give him much to work with early," Molitor said. "You have to grind out games. If that's how your team turns out to be, then you've got to kind of deal with what you have. Right now, we're having trouble scoring runs."
Still, with the six scoreless innings, Milone lowered his ERA for the season to 3.19, the second-lowest of any Twins starter. Two days after right-hander Trevor May -- who is also trying to make his case to stay in the rotation -- lasted just one-third of an inning in a rough loss, Milone continued his impressive string of pitching.
When Milone's day was done, he had allowed just two hits and struck out seven batters, one shy of his season high. Milone will likely make one more start before Santana returns -- Friday in Kansas City. If he can replicate what he did Sunday, it doesn't seem as if he'll be removed from the rotation any time soon.
FOX Sports North's Jamie Hersch contributed to this report.
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