Luetge leads the way as bullpen shuts down Twins
MINNEAPOLIS — For Lucas Luetge, Thursday night summed up his 2022 season.
The lefty reliever struggled early with two rough outings and hadn’t really found his way until he got the call at Target Field.
Luetge anchored a bullpen triage after Gerrit Cole got hammered and was chased after 2 ⅓ innings. The lefty gave the Yankees 2 ⅓ scoreless innings and time for the offense to rally for a 10-7 win over the Twins.
“It’s kind of a unique win for us,” Luetge said. “Most games this year we’ve been kind of in control.
“This was the first time we kind of got punched in the mouth early and the team never gave up. Everybody stepped up.”
The bullpen did tremendous work Thursday night, putting together seven scoreless innings. Miguel Castro got 1 ⅓ scoreless and then Wandy Peralta, Michael King and Clay Holmes each pitched a scoreless inning.
“Outstanding,” Cole said of the bullpen’s heavy lifting after his early exit. “Lucas has put a few good ones together in a row and tonight was obviously huge for us. Wandy was super crisp. Mike King came in and does what Mike King does, and Clay closed it down.
“I thought that it was really special for them to be able to keep throwing up zeros. I mean, obviously the momentum swings drastically in favor of the Twins early and I can’t do anything about it.
“But with the quality of at-bats that we’re having, we continue to play good defense, [and] for the bullpen to throw up zeros and let us continue to kind of gain momentum, make our at-bats more relevant as the game goes on, to ultimately get the lead in and lock it down —I mean, what a great team win tonight. Super impressive.”
Holmes picked up his ninth save of the season and extended his scoreless streak to 27 innings over 25 straight appearances. He has the longest single-season scoreless streak since Mariano Rivera went 30 ⅔ scoreless innings in 1999.