Twins Diary ’24

May 19: The Guardians completed what the Yankees started: demoralizing domination of the Twins. With their offense next to nonexistent, I am checking out for awhile. It’s just no fun to watch. Twice today they got their leadoff man to second, but 1-2-3 he never budged as the following hitters flailed. When they did tie the score in the 9th it was due to two errors and Buxton’s speed, not a single hit. And although Paddack pitched a great game after giving up a two-run homer to the game’s second batter, Cleveland walked the Twins off with their second home run off Duran. Julien and Kiriloff seem to be in terminal slumps, Vazquez and Margot, when they play, are automatic outs. It’s a mediocre lineup, at best.

May 18: The manager and the relievers will be blamed for last night’s 3-2 loss to the Guardians (although Baldelli partly blamed the home plate umpire), but when you get only four hits it’s hard not to point at the Twins’ weak offense as the culprit. Baldelli brought in lefty specialist Okert to face a lefthanded hitter with a runner on third and one out after Woods Richardson had pitched five shutout innings. Okert got the lefty, but the next hitter, a righty, got Okert for a two-run homer (on an 0-2 pitch) that essentially decided the game. The Twins came back to tie on a rare pinch-hit double with RISP by Kyle Farmer. Baldelli then elected to use his closer, Duran, in the 8th, presumably because that was when Cleveland’s most dangerous hitter, Jose Ramirez, would bat, and Ramirez was 0-for-7 lifetime against Duran. (Baldelli may also have realized the low odds that there would ever be a save situation that night.) Ramirez, however, hit a home run.  Baldelli’s two relief choices gave up three quick runs. It’s probable no one else would have done much better, but it doesn’t make the manager look smart.

May 17: The Twins’ humiliating collapse at home before the Yankees did more than end their string of series victories and knock them off the pace in the AL Central: it essentially ended their fandom’s hope for championship-level play this year. Sure, we can beat up on the White Sox, but we have no hope against the Big Boys is the message. The always suspect hitting was nonexistent: 26 straight scoreless innings. In yesterday’s loss the Twins’ only three hits each came with two outs in the inning. Pablo Lopez was supposed to be a stopper, and his playoff win over the Astros last year, compared to putative ace Sonny Gray’s lapse, gave hope that he could rise to an occasion. But the Yankees battered him for 13 hits in five innings. The defense fell apart; so maybe Buxton’s return is necessary after all. There will be pleasures to watch for, good games to enjoy, but from now on the ’24 Twins will be just another team.

May 13: Unfortunately, I find my mood once again vulnerable to the Twins’ success, or lack thereof, each day. I should be able to brush it off, as just a game, but I found myself checking my iPhone while at Sotheby’s auction house yesterday to see how the Twins had done. The had won, 5-1, and my day was made. The day before I left for the movies with the Twins comfortably ahead, 7-1, only to discover upon returning home that they had blown the lead and lost 10-8. I could be grateful that, like the first month of their season, I wasn’t around to watch it.

May 10: How to explain the Twins going from the second-worst (to the White Sox) team in the American League to the hottest, winning 15 of 17, and most quite handily, although none as easily as yesterday’s 11-1 drubbing of the Mariners? I was overseas during much of the bad stretch, thankful to miss the parade of high-strikeout, few hits with RISP games. When the Twins got to face the White Sox, most thought their wins, some of which were lucky, resulted from playing inferior opposition. The scheduling cooperated, with 10 games against the White Sox and L.A. Angels. But then the Twins played Boston and Seattle, both boasting superior pitching staffs, and they won five of seven. Even the losses were understandable (see May 8, below) and weren’t without good hitting and pitching.
There have been minor adjustments in personnel. Trevor Larnach, with the sweetest swing I can remember, replaced the flailing Matt Wallner. (Once a hitter’s confidence goes, there’s not much he can do.) Max Kepler came off the Injured List and changed his terrible season start to an extra-base force. In a case of addition by subtraction, Byron Buxton went on the IL: his strikeouts disappeared and Willi Castro got regular playing time and a hitting streak. Jose Miranda was brought up and contributed. Ryan Jeffers continued to grow. There were dropoffs, though: Kiriloff and Julien stopped hitting; Margot and Santana struggled below .200; Farmer stayed well below his past productivity. In general, though, strikeouts were down and the offense became fun to watch.
The potentially most impactful personnel change came on the pitching side: Simeon Woods Richardson replace Louie Varland, who was getting battered every outing. It’s still early, but Woods Richardson, at a very early age, is showing star potential. Chris Paddack has been as good as hoped and Pablo Lopez, after a few off games, has turned serious and reclaimed his ace status. The bullpen is still short an arm or two, namely Brock Stewart, but Jhoan Duran has come off the IL even better (more mature?) than last year.
The Twins aren’t quite a lock when leading after six, but they’re getting close. It’s too early to get excited: let’s see how the next two series, at Toronto and home with the Yankees, go. But for now the Twins have regained the confidence they need to make the summer interesting.

May 8: Last night’s loss to the Mariners is on the manager. Having only his “B” bullpen to work with, he lifted starter Bailer Ober after only five innings, despite Ober’s cruising with a 4-2 lead. (84 pitches was his reason). Then, needing length, he removed his “long” reliever, Cole Sands, after a 1-2-3 13-pitch inning. When Baldelli turned to Jay Jackson to start the 7th, I said, “Ober’s win is gone.” Sure enough, after four batters Jackson had loaded the bases and was done. Next man up, Steven Okert, couldn’t find the strike zone and fed a meatball to pinch-hitter Cal Raleigh, who turned it into a 440-foot grand salami. Okert is a left-on-lefty specialist, and bringing him in to face a righty with no margin for erro was not a formula for success. Running out of relievers, Baldelli then used Jorge Alcala for a successful eighth inning, but possibly concerned about having to play extra innings, with the score tied at 6, left him in for the ninth. Unaccustomed to pitching a second frame, Alcala unraveled and gave up four runs and the game.
Meanwhile on offense, Baldelli subbed out the two lefties at the top of the lineup for righthanded hitters in the 5th inning because a lefthanded pitcher briefly took the mound for Seattle. Farmer for Julien I could understand, as Julien has gone a week without a hit, but Margot, hitting .172 for Larnach, hitting .354?! On their second at-bats Farmer doubled to open the inning. Needing only to advance him, Margot grounded weakly to third, essentially killing the rally before it started. Later in the game, Baldelli put Austin Martin in for the other lefty, Alex Kiriloff. Martin did beat out an inside single, which led indirectly to the tying run; but in the next inning Martin, not used to left field, misplayed a long fly into a triple that opened the floodgates for the Mariners’ win.
Baldelli overmanages. He always has and will continue to do so. The Strib reported today that in 35 games he has used 34 different starting lineups. He also has the Little League approach that everyone on the team has to play. If someone hasn’t started in two games, you can be sure he will be in the lineup the third day. Hence, players like Margot and Jackson, who do not belong, will still be used. One can only hope that when Brock Stewart and Justin Topa are healthy, Jackson (and probably Funderburk) can be dismissed and Baldelli wil have a full deck to play his cards with. As for Margot, one hopes that if/when Buxton returns, they will keep Martin and groom him for the future rather than hang on to Margot and recollect his past.

The main story from the Twins’ Opening Day 4-1 win over Kansas City was, simply, the injury to potential superstar Royce Lewis, who pulled up lame with a quad injury as he rounded second base. It’s not that a sustained injury, if it proves as serious as it looked, will hurt the Twins’ prospects this year; they could still win their division, though not so handily. The bigger concern is for Lewis’s career. He has charisma, leadership ability and all the athletic attributes you could want. He homered in his first two playoff at-bats last fall, and he homered in his first Opening Day at-bat yesterday, following up with a single to go 2-for-2 before getting hurt. But he hasn’t played a year of professional baseball without a serious injury. Is he snakebit, injury-prone, or is this a fluke? All anyone can think of is Byron Buxton, who is 8-for-9 in seasons ruined by injury. The Twins and Minnesota need Lewis. All we can do now is hope.

April 4: The desultory performance by the Twins’ offense in their home opener against the Guardians reminded me of all I disliked about their 2023 season and resurrected my worst fears for this year now that Royce Lewis is gone. The headlines: Twins were 0-for-12 with runners in scoring position (Guardians were 2-for-7) and had 15 strikeouts to 1 walk. Kiriloff tripled with one out in the 1st, then Buxton struck out. In the 2d the Twins loaded the bases then Julien struck out looking. In the 7th again the bases were loaded with one out before Buxton struck out and Kepler popped up. Correa led off the 8th with a double then watched the next three batters fan. The defense wasn’t much better. Cleveland’s game-deciding three-run rally started when Wallner shied away from Steven Kwan’s looper instead of charging and diving, then the third run resulted from a botched rundown play. The Guardians, by contrast, constantly put the ball in play. I’d love for Minnesota to have a player like Kwan; with a runner on third and less than two outs, you know he will get his bat on the ball. Unlike Buxton, Kepler, Santana…go down the lineup. In all, it was an enervating game to watch and a deterrent to watching anymore for awhile.

A general thought concerning official scoring and statistics: In his final inning (the 6th), Pablo Lopez got two quick outs then gave up a single and left the game “responsible for the man on first.” The Twins reliever, Kelly Funderburk, hit his first batter and walked the second. The third hit a ground ball that Correa booted, resulting in a run scoring and being charged to Lopez. Clearly, Funderburk was more “responsible” for the run scoring than Lopez. I would give the official scorer the discretion to attribute the run in this situation: a runner not in scoring position can be assigned as the responsibility of the relief pitcher if he enters the game with two outs, or maybe even one.