Minnesota Twins closer Taylor Rogers felt so guilty about blowing a save last week that he wrote an apology note and sent a gift to starting pitcher Kenta Maeda, who was replaced by Rogers after losing his no-hitter in the ninth inning.
Maeda’s 12-strikeout, one-hit gem against the Milwaukee Brewers Aug. 18 is likely the best game the 32-year-old right-hander has pitched in his MLB career, but he didn’t even get the win in the stat sheet because Minnesota’s 3-0 evaporated with Rogers on the mound in the bottom of the ninth inning.
Though the Twins won the game 4-3 in 12 innings, Rogers felt guilty about blowing the save and wound up writing an apology note and buying a gift for Maeda.
“I can’t read the letter myself but I had it translated and basically it says ‘I am so sorry for ruining your phenomenal pitching performance yesterday,'” said Maeda, according to a translation on his YouTube channel. “This really made me happy because I don’t think there are that many pitchers out there who care this much to go out of their way to do this.”
Rogers told the Pioneer Press that a team trainer told him about a brand of high-quality Japanese rice that Maeda likes, so he bought him some of that as a gift to go along with the apology letter.
As for the blown save: That’s just baseball, said Maeda, according to the translation.
“Sometimes your closer gets hit, it doesn’t matter what team you play for. So I would like it if people stopped commenting negative things about that. There’s nothing you can do about it and he told me he’s really sorry about it,” Maeda added.
Rogers has seven saves this season but he’s also blown two saves and has a 4.76 ERA, which is a lot higher than the 2.61 ERA he posted last season.
“I urge you again to be nice to Rogers too because he’s a great teammate. That’s basically what I wanted to say in this video,” Maeda concluded.
Aug. 25 Weather with Sven:
