Minnesota Twins' Jhoan Duran Goes Viral After Warm-Up Pitch on Thursday
The Minnesota Twins beat the St. Louis Cardinals on Thursday night by a score of 5-3.
Michael A. Taylor helped key the victory with a two-run homer and Ryan Jeffers added a home run as well.
On the mound, Sonny Gray got his first win since April by tossing 7.0 innings of two-run ball. He walked none, struck out eight and lowered his season ERA to 3.18.
As impressive as the win was, the most impressive moment of the game perhaps came in a moment that didn't count.
After getting hit by a comebacker, Twins relief ace Jhoan Duran took a warm-up pitch to see if he was OK. In doing so, he tossed that warm-up pitch at 100 mph.
Yup, the "no-effort" warm-up pitch went 100 mph and would be faster than most pitchers best fastball. Duran is among the hardest throwers in baseball and even hit 105 mph on a pitch this year against the Seattle Mariners.
The 25-year-old is now 2-5 on the year and has 19 saves after collecting one on Thursday. He's got an ERA of 2.95 and has struck out 58 batters in 42.2 innings.
The win was critical for Minnesota, who is now 56-54 and leads the Cleveland Guardians by 2.5 games in the American League Central. Cleveland is 53-56.
The Twins will be back in action on Friday night when they host the Arizona Diamondbacks at Target Field.
First pitch is set for 8:10 p.m. ET as Merrill Kelly (ARI) pitches against Bailey Ober (MIN).
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