October 12: I can’t complain or feel surprised that the Twins’ season ended last night with a 3-2 loss to the Astros. For one thing, the Twins won three playoff games and lost three, a .500 record that reflects the way they played most of the year. And when you see that both the Orioles and Dodgers, division winners who won 100 games during the season, were eliminated 3-0, it seems that the Twins did pretty well. (The Atlanta Braves, who had the best year of all, are in danger of losing their series 3-1 as well.) For a second thing, the Houston Astros are not only a division winner and defending world champions, they are measurably better than the Twins in every department and at every position. Sure, Royce Lewis hit two home runs, but Yordan Alvarez hit three–and batted .500 for the series while only one Twin hit over .200. Pablo Lopez was dominant in pitching seven shutout innings in Game 2, but so was Justin Verlander in Game 1, while Cristian Javier pitched one-hit ball for five innings in Game 3. Jhoan Duran was effective in relief, but he gave up walks and hits, while Ryan Pressly, with the game on the line, struck out the side, getting Polanco, Lewis and Kepler on 3-2 pitches in the zone. Correa was good at short, but Jeremy Pena was spectacular. Etc., etc.
The Twins pitching was as good as could be expected. Sure, you can wish the usually reliable Caleb Thielbar did not surrender homers to Alvarez and Abreu (and I wished that MLB would make Abreu button his shirt), but Pagan, Paddack, Ryan, Jax and Duran all performed admirably in addition to Lopez. No, the responsibility for the loss falls squarely on the Twins’ offense, or lack thereof. In each of the last two losses, the Twins managed but three hits while striking out 14 times. To come as close as they did in Game 4, getting two runs on three hits–a double and home run by Julien and a homer by Lewis–was remarkable, not the loss. The Twins had only one runner at second base all game!–and he was doubled off when the next batter hit a line drive out behind him.
So cry not for Minnesota. In fact, one can hope that this experience will help the Twins for years to come. The pitching staff is in good shape for next year already. Lewis and Julien look like they will be anchors in the lineup for years to come. (The jury is still out on Wallner and Kiriloff, who both appeared overmatched in the playoffs. Kiriloff’s shoulder may have affected him, but that is itself cause for concern.) Most promising is the play of Correa, who looked like a middle-of-the-lineup hitter for the first time all year. If plantar fasciitis was holding him back, we might see the star the Twins are paying for next year. What to do about Buxton, who was given a courtesy spot on the last-game roster, is another issue, but we will address that another time.
October 6: Three plays epitomized the Twins’ wild-card playoff victory over the sluggish Toronto Blue Jays. 1) Royce Lewis’s first-inning, full-count two-run home run in Game 1 was as exciting a moment as I can remember in sports. His second home run in his next at-bat left my jaw dropped. 2) the Carlos Correa-to-Ryan Jeffers connection that cut down the Jays’ Bichette at home plate after Polanco whiffed the slow grounder was more than a remarkable, Derrick Jeter-reminiscent run-saver, it was a momentum-shifter. After that play, you had to think this could be the Twins’ year – and I suspect the Jays, at least subconsciously, must have felt that, too. And don’t overlook Jeffers’s part in the play: he fielded the throw on a short hop, pivoted and made a lunging tag, cleanly blocking the plate. 3) The Pickoff. We’ll never know if Gray had thrown the 3-2 pitch whether Bichette would have made the third out, walked or driven in two runs, but ending the rally and the inning by embarrassing the Jays’ best player, Vlad Guerrero Jr., was a soul-crusher. Even more than the Correa throw in Game 1, it signaled that the gods were with the Twins and must have made the Jays think, This just isn’t our year.
All three plays also underlined just how intense playoff baseball is, at a whole different level than it is played for the preceding 162 games. However well the Twins do against the Astros, the experience has to help them in the years to come. (Which is one reason I wish Baldelli were not so quick to pull Kiriloff and Wallner or even Julien when a lefthanded pitcher enters the game.)
October 5 Before getting wrapped up in the postseason, I want to acknowledge that, despite throwing the last game to save their pitchers, the Twins finished the regular season 12 games above .500 after spending a seemingly interminable period yo-yoing between two above, two below that mark. Granted, their year-end schedule was soft and several opponents were already looking to next year; still, the schedule evens out over the year for everyone.
October 2: Matt Wallner. The Twins seem to have finally settled on a regular leftfielder for the first time since the departure (expulsion?) of Eddie Rosario, and I’m a big fan. Not only is Matt Wallner a local Minnesota product, but he overcame great odds and many prospects in line ahead of him to claim the position. In one spring training the battle was among Brent Rooker, Kyle Garlick and Trevor Larnach, with utilityman Nick Gordon in the mix. Then this year the Twins spent $11 million on Joey Gallo to take the spot. Meanwhile, Wallner kept putting up good numbers in the minors, awaiting a chance., which came when Larnach was injured and Gallo struggled. Gallo, in fact, was a bust, and fouling a pitch off his foot finally gave the Twins a face-saving way to remove him from the active roster (why he hasn’t been DFA’d, however, remains a mystery). Wallner, in another fact, has been exactly the hitter the Twins hoped Gallo would be: he has led the team in home runs since the ASG and, to my eye at least, he has led the team in strikeouts. When he hits the ball he impacts the game, but just as often his lineup spot is a black hole, a la Correa and Buxton. The Twins have a lot of players who, on a given day, contribute nothing–they set a Major League record for strikeouts–but Wallner’s upside has so far made him a positive addition. The plus factor is his arm: one of his outfield throws was clocked at 100 mph and they’re generally on the money. His defense is adequate and will likely improve, and with that arm he will eventually migrate to rightfield when Kepler’s run is over. As much as I like Wallner and his even demeanor, I have to wonder if the Twins have really upgraded the position from possibles who got away: Spencer Steer, the Reds’ MVP as a rookie; Rooker, Oakland’s home run leader and All-Star; LaMonte Wade, a regular for the Giants; or Rosario, a fixture on the Braves’ offensive juggernaut.
September 23: The Twins clinched their division on their first try, 8-6 against the Angels. All was not copacetic in the win: the offense continued to frustrate, with 10 strikeouts, 10 runners left on base–including bases loaded twice–and success somewhat due to receiving ten walks from Angel pitchers. Pablo Lopez reverted to his merely okay form: lots of strikeouts but suffering a three-run inning. Sonny Gray and Kenta Maeda are looking like better options for Games 1 and 2 of the playoffs. Most disconcerting was the “save” by closer Jhoan Duran: gifted a three-run lead with the chance to close out the division race, he gave up two hits, two walks, one wild pitch and one run before getting the third out on a grounder up the middle with the bases loaded. On the other hand, who has really been much better? Cleveland’s Clase and the Orioles’ Cano both blew saves in the same game last night; the Twins got to the Reds’ star Diaz and the Astros’ Pressley has been hit hard. Maybe a resurgent Josh Hader, but that’s about it. Nevertheless, should the Twins carry a one-run lead into the ninth inning of their first playoff game, there will be a lot of nervous Twins fans watching.
September 19: Neither Joe Ryan nor Dallas Keuchel helped their cases for usage in Game 3 of the playoffs, if there is one. Ryan threw another gopher ball and admitted that his walks–three in five innings, two of which prolonged innings and wound up scoring–killed him. Keuchel ate up three lost innings, but that’s not needed in a short playoff.
Speaking of playoffs, it is only the current wild card system, which I bemoaned when it started, that is maintaining any interest in the last two weeks of this season. All three National League division titles are salted away, and the top WC team, which would have been the only playoff participant in the previous system, is 3.5 games clear of the other contenders. The race for the fifth and sixth playoff spots, however, is intense: four teams are within one game of each other. Similarly, but less so, the American League, where there is an 8.5-game gap between the top WC team and the rest. Three teams fighting for the fifth and sixth spots have been in a virtual dead heat for the last week.
September 18: While I was away, the Twins surged to an 8-game division lead (now 7 but still overwhelming) and showed signs of being competitive in the playoffs to come. They held their own, and occasionally won, series against the other playoff-bound teams: Baltimore, Tampa Bay, Texas, Seattle, Houston. Their season-long strength is also the reason they will have a chance: their starting pitching. No one has a great won-loss record, but their combined ERA is currently fourth-best in the Majors, and I think they are at or near the top in innings pitched. The Twins played .500 ball most of the year but generally avoided long slumps because the next game’s starter usually gave them a chance to win. Pablo Lopez and Sonny Gray both had occasional bad outings but rarely back-to-back. And almost unheard-of, the five starters at the beginning of the season (if you include Bailey Ober, who should have been on the opening-day roster and was quickly added when Tyler Mahle went down) are the five starters as the season comes to an end.
What accounts for the Twins’ recent rise above .500 is their improved offense. It is still homer-dependent and strikeout-prone, but the insertion of Royce Lewis in the middle of the lineup and the increased production of Max Kepler have led to more games scoring more than three runs. Thirty runs in four games against the White Sox may be an aberration as well as a reflection on the opposition, but it’s something that wouldn’t have happened earlier in the year.
The remaining suspense for Twins-watchers centers on the composition of the playoff roster. I think we can all agree, finally, that Joey Gallo’s days as a Twin are blessedly over. But what happens to the current roster when Michael A. Taylor, Byron Buxton and even Nick Gordon are no longer injured? Taylor, one assumes, will replace his replacement, Andrew Stevenson. Gordon, one has to believe, has no shot, as he was hitting .176 before he missed the last four months and has a skill set duplicated and exceeded by Willi Castro. As for Buxton, the team has performed better without him, he can’t be counted on to stay healthy, and his strikeouts are rally-killers, especially as, like Correa, he is placed above his station in the batting order. When he played he was limited to DH, but now that is where the valuable Eddie Julien is slotted. Is it really worth disrupting team chemistry so that Buxton can DH against a potential lefty? On the other hand, Buxton is signed for many millions for many more years; will it damage the Twins’ long-term investment if they tell Byron they don’t need him?
September 1: I lost some respect for Rocco Baldelli when he said something like, “Funderburk will get more chances like that,” after the three-run 10th-inning homer to Kyle Calhoun, instead of saying, “My fault; I shouldn’t have put him in that spot.” I don’t remember Baldelli every admitting to a mistake, even when it would take some heat off his players. Maybe he feels he will lose some control if he acknowledges fallibility, or maybe he never thinks he’s wrong, despite constant criticism from the online kibbitzers.
August 31: The Twins proved they are not a playoff force and they also suggested they may succumb to a division race after all by blowing a 2-0 lead and falling 5-2 to the Guardians. Poor Sonny Gray, who pitched a three-hit shutout for seven innings only to see the Twins’ four best relievers and a rookie give up seven hits and five runs in three. Every move the manager made backfired: lifting Gray after only 81 pitches; inserting Michael Taylor in center in time for him to nonchalant a single into a double, leading to a run; replacing Jax, who had given up that “double” with Thielbar, who gave up a run-scoring single; trusting Duran with the 9th and seeing a blown save; then, most inexplicably, replacing Pagan, who hadn’t given up a hit, with Kody Funderbunk who in his second Major League appearance gave up the game-winning three-run homer on a 3-0 pitch. But as bad as the Twins’ relievers and manager were, let’s not forget the Twins offense: only four hits (by two batters) and 14 strikeouts. One good sign: Baldelli pinch-hit for Gallo mid-game even though a righthander was on the mound because he didn’t want a strikeout (alas, pinch-hitter Luplow still struck out), signalling that Gallo’s days are numbered (probably Luplow’s too). One bad sign: Baldelli still used Correa third in the lineup and was rewarded with two strikeouts and two double plays. Correa was 1-for-12 in the series and shows no signs of a late-season resurgence. If Correa batted eighth and wasn’t paid umpteen millions we would gladly accept him as a smooth-fielding shortstop who gets occasional hits, a model of which there used to be many. Let’s see how the September return of Kiriloff, Castro and Buxton shakes things up.
August 30: After seeming to turn the corner with two good wins, the frustrating Twins offense returned last night, as they went 0-for-9 with runners in scoring position in a 4-2 loss to the rival Guardians. Polanco swung for the fences instead of moving over the runner from second with no outs; with a runner on third and less than two outs, the best a Twins batter could do was a short popup. Solo home runs were their only scores. Not even fun to watch.
August 28: What’s wrong with Carlos Correa? I can perhaps overlook his league lead in grounding into double plays, as several have resulted from commendable attempts to go the other way that happened to find the second baseman. His failure to hit with runners in scoring position is more troubling, especially as manager Baldelli insists on batting him third or fourth in the lineup. What bothers me most, and which relates to his RISP failures, is the way he strikes out. He’s not “just missing” or “swinging through” or “getting fooled.” He’s taking third-strike fastballs down the middle and, worse, swinging wildly at balls way outside or in the dirt. He’s missing strike three by six inches. No one else on the Twins has looked so bad. The other day a pitcher buzzed a fastball at knee-level for strike one and Correa fouled off a pitch for strike two. I predicted that the next pitch would be a slider off the plate. It missed the strike zone by a foot, Correa swung futilely and was gone. That everyone else is aware of this is probably why, in an important situation, he is so easily disposed of. Yes, he goes 1-for-4 or 1-for-5, keeping his average at a pathetic .225, but they are rarely the key hits in a game. For those you have to look at Solano or Lewis, yesterday’s hitting heroes, or Wallner, Julien, Kepler, Farmer, Jeffers, even Michael A. Taylor.
August 26: With the Twins down 5-2 to Texas Thursday, headed for a third straight loss, I was seriously contemplating the Tigers, if not the Guardians, taking the Central title away from them. They came back to win 7-5, in one of the year’s best games, and then mauled Texas yesterday, 12-2, hitting on all cylinders (excluding Gallo and Buxton, of course), prompting me to look ahead, for the first time, to the playoffs. As the third seed they would be matched against the lowest wild card, at the moment the Mariners, against whom they should at least be competitive
August 24: As much as I deride the Twins’ propensity to strike out–they are a lock to set a Major League record for most in a season–I should note that they are not unique. While their 10 K’s last night was slightly below their season average, in 11 of the 12 other box scores in today’s paper at least one team had strikeouts in double digits, and in two games both teams had 10 or more. The White Sox struck out 17 times, albeit in 10 innings and three teams had 14. Over all baseball yesterday, the average number of strikeouts per team was 10.23. [Four games went 10 innings, but four other games only went 8.5, for the statistical quibbler.]
August 23: Now that infield shifts have been legislated, my new quibble is with the “infield-in” formation the Twins generally employ with a runner on third and less than two outs (“double-play depth” being an alternative option with a runner on first and one out). In this data-driven world there may be a reckoning of runs-prevented versus runs-allowed with this alignment, but my eye test is convinced that it hurts the Twins more than it helps. Never moreso than last night, when the Brewers flipped a 2-3 deficit to a 7-3 win with a five-run 6th inning aided by two, maybe three, hits that wouldn’t have been hits against a normal infield alignment. It’s conceivable that no runs would have scored. Most egregious was a soft liner that tipped off Correa’s glove at shortstop. He perhaps should have caught the ball anyway, but if he had been playing back it would have been an easy out, and maybe two if he could have doubled off the runner at second. The final runs scored on a routine ground ball up the middle that leaked past the drawn-in infielders. Less certain, but possible, was the Texas Leaguer that drove in the first runs. A second baseman in normal position would at least have had a shot.
On the other side of the scale are runs prevented. This only occurs when a ground ball is hit directly at an infielder (who has no range on a hard-hit ball). Any statistic on this would overlook the fact that even in normal depth an infielder could throw out at the plate an average-to-slow baserunner on a normal grounder. It also doesn’t account for the damage that potentially accrues, not from the run scoring, but from the new baserunner who gets on as a result of the shift.
The hardest decision a manager has to make in a game is when to relieve his starter. At least that’s the subject of most critical second-guessing of Twins manager Rocco Baldelli. Sonny Gray complained preseason that Twins starters should be allowed to pitch further into the game, but he has a record this season of imploding when allowed to pitch the 6th or, more rarely, the 7th. A prime example was Saturday, when he gave up four runs in the 6th after pitching a perfect game through five. Yesterday Baldelli lifted Bailey Ober after five innings, despite having thrown on 78 pitches and retiring the previous five hitters in a row. If he had allowed Ober to successfully navigate the 6th, as all the second-guessers wanted, he could have closed out the win with Thielbar (7th), Pagan or Jax (8th) and Duran (9th). Instead, he brought in Dylan Floro who gave up two hard hits before a succession of weakly hit balls over and through a drawn-in infield produced a five-run inning and a loss.
August 20: It may be too soon to judge, but I’m starting to think that Falvey/Levine may know better than me what they’re doing. It’s not just that Arraez’s batting average has dipped below .360, but Pablo Lopez is taking on the mantle of a #1 starter that the Twins needed. And with Eddie Julien and Jorge Polanco both capably playing second base, and Kyle Farmer in reserve, the Twins were dealing Arraez from a position of strength. I couldn’t believe the Twins brought back both Emilio Pagan and Max Kepler, but both are solid contributors at the moment. I’ve noted before that Michael A. Taylor, Donovan Solano and Willi Castro, plus Farmer, all quiet offseason free agent pickups, have been much more valuable than the big-tickets Correa, Buxton and Gallo. And today the flyer they took on Dallas Keuchel paid off with a 2-0 shutout of the Pirates. The Twins aren’t out of the woods: the expected returns of Buxton, Kiriloff and, less likely, Nick Gordon, could disrupt the lineups and chemistry; and absent the injured Brock Stewart the Twins are short at least one reliable reliever. But for now they lead the division by six games, their high point, and with their excellent starting rotation it’s easy to think they can play .500 ball the rest of the year, which should be all they need to reach the playoffs. And I’ll discuss their chances there as we get closer.
August 17: Win some, lose some. Yesterday’s 8-7 loss to Detroit hardly bothered me for four small reasons and one big. The Twins were coming off a three-game win streak and you can’t win ’em all. The Guardians also lost, so the Twins’ 4.5-game division lead is intact. The loss was attributable to just one player–Griffin Jax who gave up four runs and a 4-3 lead in his one inning of pitching. And the Twins showed unusual life in the bottom of the 9th, scoring three runs on homers by Polanco and Jeffers and almost winning on another long drive by Wallner. The big takeaway, though, was the hitting of the rookies: Julien was 4-for-5, Lewis was 3-for-4 with a walk. They are the Twins’ future; if they continue to lead the team in hitting, while Wallner learns to hit lefties and Kiriloff stops being injured, I will have less cause to complain about the Twins’ having given away two budding stars to the Reds (Steer and Encarnacion-Strand) last year for Tyler Mahle (i.e., nothing).
August 14: I must acknowledge Joey Gallo’s 4-for-4 night with two home runs in Saturday’s 8-1 win over the Phillies. It doesn’t change my mind as to who should go when Royce Lewis and Byron Buxton return to the active roster. He does have value at first base with Kiriloff not close to returning, but Baldelli showed he has options by using Christian Vasquez there yesterday with Solano still not 100%. The second win over the Phils on Sunday, 3-0, was even more heartening, as it turned a potentially disastrous road trip into a 3-4 march, which at least kept pace with the rest of their pathetic division. (In fact, at 6-4 the Twins are the only one of the five with a winning record over the last ten games.) Always on the lookout for trouble, though, I note, despite the shutout, both Jax and Duran were hit hard in their relief appearances. Thielbar and Pagan pitched the only clean innings. I wonder, again, how long Baldelli will stick with Duran as his inevitable closer.
August 10: The Twins brought back their lackadaisical offense to conclude a third straight loss to the Tigers, coming down hard from their season-first five win streak. It’s bad enough that they are shut out on only two hits, the problem for me is that so few of their at-bats are even competitive. To wit: two times the Twins got a runner to third base with one out. Both times the next hitter struck out (Jeffers swinging, Julien looking). Nine strikeouts in all, on their way to a Major League record. Correa is on a hitting streak, but his hits come early in a game, rarely with anyone on base. The night before he hit a first-inning solo home run; but when he batted in the 9th with two outs and the bases loaded, he swung wildly at strike three. Poor Kenta Maeda, who pitched 5-2/3 shutout innings before surrendering a two-out, two-strike homer that gave him the loss.
August 7: I think Matt Wallner walked off the competition with Joey Gallo for the Twins leftfield spot yesterday, when his two-run homer in the 9th inning knocked off the visiting Diamondbacks, 5-3. In the field he made a diving catch coming in and an over-the-shoulder catch at the fence, two days after registering 100 mph on a perfect throw headed home. He’s hitting 95 points above Gallo and has hit six homers in the last 11 games, while Gallo somehow managed three strikeouts Saturday in a game the Twins won 13-1. All it should take is the return of Alex Kiriloff from the IL, where he is challenging Byron Buxton, for the Twins to officially say goodbye to Gallo. But why won’t I believe it?
August 5: Am I the only one who starts sweating bullets when the Twins bring in Jhoan Duran to “close” a game? Baldelli must think that if he continues to treat Duran as his closer, he will become one, but there is no evidence it is working. In his last four outings, he has given up six runs, three walks, three stolen bases, a wild pitch and been twiced “saved,” once by a fantastic play by shortstop Correa and last night by a missed call on a 3-2 pitch. He struggles with his control, throws his “splinker” in the dirt and exudes more sweat than confidence. His fastball at 102-104 is impressive, but big league hitters are learning to time it; and when Ryan and Ober are on, their slower fastballs seem harder to hit. For my money, Duran is now the #4 reliever on the Twins. Caleb Thielbar, back from injury, puts up clean innings and seems the most confident. Emilio Pagan has the best stuff (although newcomer Dylan Floro may challenge) but is still working his way back into stress situations. Griffin Jax has been Duran’s setup man, and although he has seldom been perfect he’s gotten by so far. Whether Baldelli will mix up the closer position–as he has mixed-and-matched everywhere else on the field, beyond shortstop–will be worth watching.
July 31: In retrospect, how big was, and will be, the Twins’ loss on July 25 to the Mariners? Riding a four-game winning streak and ahead 6-2 in the 8th inning, their bullpen collapsed for seven runs and a 9-7 loss. At the time it seemed a blip on their post-ASG ascendent trajectory. Now it heralded the start of a crushing five-game losing streak to inferior opposition that has brought them back close to the Guardians and .500. And worse, troubling performances by their entire pitching staff. I don’t expect any pre-trade-deadline moves, unless it’s for a reliever, and am still waiting for the Gallo shoe to drop.
July 29: Three quick observations after last night’s 8-4 extra-inning loss to the Royals:
1. The trio of lefty rookies that has carried the Twins for awhile went a collective 0-for-11. Might they be cooling off as the league discovers them, or simply due to the dog days of…July?
2. The second most telling statistic, after strikeouts, that represents the frustrations of this Twins offense, is RISP–hits with Runners In Scoring Position. The Royals last night were an outstanding 4-for-8. By contrast, the Twins were 3-for-16. (They also doubled the Royals’ strikeout total, 14 to 7.)
3. The Twins closer, Jhoan Duran, is not there yet. Because of his stuff the Twins optimistically expect him to be unhittable. But his control is undependable, and his maturity and experience aren’t there yet. Also, he can’t hold runners on base. Once someone gets on, whether it be via walk, infield squibber or actual hit, the situation is often dicey. There’s a chance with another year of work his confidence and command will elevate; but for now he’s a reminder that the distance between “closer” and “loser” is just one letter.
July 28: A roster decision will have to be made when Jorge Polanco comes off the IL, perhaps today. It’s conceivable that Donovan Solano will be released now, or when Royce Lewis is activated. The obvious choice, though, is one of the three lefthanded-hitting corner outfielders. Max Kepler is going nowhere, despite my despair at his still being on the roster when the season started. That means it’s Joey Gallo versus Matt Wallner. Let’s compare the two using this year’s statistics, although Wallner has only played 21 games compared to Gallo’s 80.
Batting average: Wallner .294 Gallo .177.
OPS (much ballyhooed): Wallner .988 Gallo .748
Strikeout rate: Wallner 29.8% Gallo 52.3%.
HR/AB: Wallner 1/12.7 Gallo 1/10.4.
Age: Wallner 25 Gallo 29
Future: Wallner several years of team control Gallo free agent after season
Intangibles: Wallner MN native drafted by Twins Gallo drafted by Rangers, on 4th ML team
With the chance to develop Wallner into a regular for years to come while he potentially leads the team in hitting versus hoping Gallo continues to hit a home run for every five strikeouts while hitting .180, the decision seems beyond obvious. The only, and I stress only, reason to keep Gallo is to not admit that giving him an $11 million contract for one year was a mistake. We will see.
July 24: Last night the Twins came back from a 3-0 deficit in the 9th and won 5-4 in 12. According to ESPN, it was the first time in eight years that the Twins had won after being behind by three runs or more in the 9th. That sounds about right.
July 23: Nobody’s good every day in baseball, and it takes contributions from everyone to forge a winning streak. Last night, the lefty duo of Julien and Kiriloff went 0-for, leaving runners all over the bases. The Twins won, though, because of rbi hits from Correa and, less expected, Christian Vasquez and Michael A. Taylor at the bottom of the lineup. And the win went to Jordan Balazovic.
July 22: In predicting the Twins’ season, I largely punted on relief pitching, believing that commodity couldn’t be evaluated by reputation. So often the known quantity will falter and an unknown or two will carry the load. Cases in point: Jorge Lopez, acquired late season last year from Baltimore, where he had been an effective closer, is now basically unusable after returning from a “mental health” stint on the IL and hitting three Mariners in one inning after giving up a single and home run. Emilio Pagan, whom no one wanted to see on the roster this year, has quietly emerged, after a bad start, as a stalwart. And in the absence of Brock Stewart–another reliever not on anyone’s preseason Bingo card–Baldelli has turned to Oliver Ortega, who came from who-knows-where. And there’s Jordan Balazovic, who has been on the horizon in the Twins’ farm system. Caleb Thielbar did perform as expected before getting hurt and has been replaced as the staff lefty by Jovani Moran. Griffin Jax and Jhoan Duran are the only two who have fulfilled a role anyone could have predicted.
July 20: While a Twins win gives me an overall good feeling, I get much less excited now by a Yankees loss. I look at their box score and wonder, Who are these guys? With Aaron Judge out and Stanton below the Mendoza line, there is no offense to fear and their pitching is just as sketchy. I’m already pretty sure that the Twins won’t lose more playoff games to New York this fall–not because the Twins will do their usual postseason falter, but because the Yankees won’t even be there.
July 19: Two quick comments on last night’s 10-3 win over the Mariners:
1. Once through the rotation after the ASG, Bailey Ober has the only win by a starter, adding to my prediction of July 1 that he is the de facto Twins ace.
2. Without Buxton in the lineup, the Twins scored 10 runs on 14 hits. Granted, the replacement DHs went 0-for-4, but they had been lowered to fifth in the batting order so didn’t interrupt rallies as Buxton’s strikeouts did. Everyone is waiting to see what happens with Julien when Polanco and Lewis return from the IL. It will be hard to justify giving the DH spot to 3K/game Buxton over your hottest hitter.
July 15: Just as I was about to pronounce the Twins front office brain dead for not jettisoning strikeout king Joey Gallo at the All-Star break, he hit a game-winning two-run ninth-inning homer to edge the hapless Oakland A’s last night. Now I will have to focus on the idiocy of batting 3K Byron Buxton third in the lineup every day.
July 9: The Twins are limping into the All-Star break having lost three straight at home to the Orioles, in second place behind the Guardians for the first time since the season opened, a half-game behind, one game below .500. To know why, look no further than the averages of the four highest-paid batters: .225 (Correa), .208 (Buxton), .207 (Kepler) and .186 (Gallo). The only Twins having respectable years are the journeymen they picked up in the offseason: Solano, Farmer, Castro, even Michael A. Taylor is outhitting Buxton and Kepler. The pitchers are doing their job, but the pressure of being perfect has to wear them down. Today Joe Ryan struck out 10 in his first four innings but was still mired in a 1-1 game before a slight stumble in the 5th opened the door to the Twins’ middle relief and an eventual 15-2 rout. The final ignominy was the victory went to Kyle Gibson, who never quite made it as a Twins starter but now, with the O’s offense behind him, has nine wins, more than any Twin, despite a 4.60 ERA that is worse than any Twins starter.
I’ll say it once again: if the Twins expect me, and thousands of their other critics, to care about the second half of the season, they will have to show that they are trying to win despite the bad contracts they’ve given out. Specifically, Joey Gallo must be gone by next week.
July 5: The Kansas City Royals come to town for three games and all is right with the world. In the last spin through the rotation, Twins starters have been excellent to spectacular, with only Duran’s meltdown costing a loss. No sooner did I proclaim Ober the staff ace than Pablo Lopez spins a complete game, four-hit shutout, Sonny Gray shows he deserves his All-Star selection and Kenta Maeda looks, for the first time, like the pitcher who finished second in Cy Young voting two years ago. There isn’t a starter I don’t look forward to. The batters are striking out a little less, and each game produces a different hitting star: Kiriloff, Julien, Jeffers, even Kepler. If they keep it up against Baltimore later this week we will have a pleasant All-Star break.
July 2: Last night we saw the difference between the Orioles’ real closer and the Twins’ optimistic closer. Jhoan Duran, whom the Twins have touted as their closer for the near future but who does not yet look all that confident, came on in the 8th to protect Sonny Gray’s 1-0 lead and basically imploded: three hits, albeit two were cheap, a walk and a hit batter gave the O’s two runs before being pulled. In the Twins’ 9th, Felix Bautista, headed to the All-Star Game, made mincemeat of three batters, hardly breaking a sweat. What a luxury, if not a necessity, to have a close-down closer. At the same time, however, the Guardians’ Emanuel Clase, another All-Star and last year’s top closer, blew a 4-run lead in the 9th before Cleveland won in extra innings.
July 1: Is it too soon to crown Bailey Ober as the ace of the Twins staff? He exudes confidence with his size and demeanor, his fastball and changeup are both strikeout pitches and, almost best of all, he hardly walks anyone. (How many of the runners who’ve scored against the Twins this year were given free passes? A large percentage, I’ll bet.) He also handles pressure: the Twins have rarely scored runs behind him, and today was the second 1-0 win he’s started.
Two days ago, when the talk was all about the need for the Twins to change their approach at the plate to cut down on home run swings and the resulting strikeouts, I was about to write that talk was fine, but so long as they kept Joey Gallo on the team the talk was nothing but that. Yes, I would have said, he hit the occasional home run, often with no one on, but his two strikeouts and one pop-up per game killed offensive momentum and was the poster child for the claimed “bad approach.” Then today, what happens: Gallo hits a solo home run and it’s the only run in an important 1-0 victory over the Orioles. So, you take the good with the bad and just hope for more of the good.
June 28. The Twins arrived at the season’s halfway point one game below .500, but still barely in first place in their division. Losing badly to the Braves, however, just showed how far they are from competing against the upper echelon. Before I despair completely about the Twins hitters, though, it’s worth looking at the Yankee lineup: Josh Donaldson is batting .134 after hitting a homer for the only run in a 2-1 loss to the A’s; Giancarlo Stanton is at .146; and former batting champ D.J. LeMahieu is hitting.234.
June 26: The Twins edged the lowly Tigers 6-3 in 10 innings, but note how they did it. Eleven of their 12 hits were by Julien, Lewis, Castro, Vasquez and Solano, none of whom were projected starters for 2023. No contributions from the big tickets: Buxton, Kepler, Polanco or Correa, who not only went 0 for 5 but hit into two double plays, the only category in which he leads the league.
June 22: Is it premature to eat crow? Correa and Buxton hit solo homers in the first inning to lead the Twins to a split of their four-game series with the BoSox after being outclassed in the first two. Buxton then hit a second solo shot, with both listed over 465 feet, a StatCast record. While I was demanding accountability, moving Buxton down in the order or taking him out of the lineup as he went 0-for-24, manager Baldelli said he’s not going to get his timing back by sitting on the bench. And Baldelli presumably knows that without Buxton the Twins will just be an average team. So it’s okay to sacrifice a few games now in order to play for the long run. As for Correa, he earns his spot, if not his pay, with his defense. A home run here and there does not yet convince me he’s an offensive asset.
June 20: Last night Pablo Lopez’s record fell to 3-4 and his ERA rose to 4.40, although in fairness it should be noted that the winning runs came in, not against Lopez, but on a triple given up by reliever Jovani Moran. The same evening Luis Arraez went 5-for-5 for the Miami Marlins, including, ironically, three hits against ex-Twin ace Jose Berrios, raising his batting average, once again, to .400. Because the two were traded for each other last offseason, their names, and fortunes, will be forever linked in Twins’ fans minds. The fact that Lopez was given an absurdly rich long-term contract after his first four starts, after which he’s significantly underperformed, only magnifies the attention he receives. But even though the season is not half over, and the two players’ fortunes could change, nothing will diminish what the loss of Arraez has meant for the ’23 Twins.
Luis was a fan favorite, far and away the most fun player to watch at bat: he bounced around in the batter’s box, taking every at bat seriously. He fouled off pitches he couldn’t handle and pounced on ones he could. The announcers ritually noted that his at bats “didn’t begin until he had two strikes.” He hit to all fields, singles mostly but an occasional home run, like he was showing off. Batting leadoff, he made the pitcher show off all his pitches, wearing him down for teammates who followed. If his make-contact approach didn’t directly influence others, it couldn’t have hurt. Twins hitters this year are uniformly terrible at shortening their swings, just trying to get a piece of the ball when down two strikes. Game after game we see the opposing team take a two-strike pitch the opposite way and hit safely, however weakly, to set up or continue a big inning. Meanwhile, the Twins batter swings for the fences and, more often than any other team in the Majors, strikes out. Win or lose, Arraez gave fans something to take from the game, something that has been missing so often this frustrating year. And his effect on the Marlins has been notable: with one of the lowest payrolls in baseball and playing in a much tougher division than the Twins’, they are 11 games over .500 vs. the Twins at 1 game below.
In analyzing the trade, though, there are two other questions worth asking: what would the Twins rotation have been without Lopez, and would Arraez have had the same success had he stayed in Minnesota? Without Lopez, the Twins would have begun the season with Bailey Ober in the rotation. He had the best spring training of any starter, deserved to be on the team and by now has proved he belonged. The Twins, then, would have been without an obvious call-up from the minors in the likely event that one of their five starters got injured. Slightly less likely was that two starters would be hurt, but that’s what happened, with Tyler Mahle out for the year and Kenta Maeda lost for two months. That opened a spot for Louie Varland, and although his hot start has cooled off, his record is still better than Lopez’s. At this point, it is probably better that Lopez is on the squad, although we don’t know what Brent Headrick or Simeon Woods-Richardson, the next line, would do. They would at least be getting experience. So it’s not clear that adding Lopez was essential. Nor is it clear that Arraez would be hitting .400 for Minnesota. In Miami he has been given the second base job and is assured of playing every day. The Twins were not going to give him second base over Jorge Polanco, although they should have. And they were saving first base, his primary position last year, for Alex Kiriloff. Arraez was not the defensive liability some called him–in fact, he turned into quite a creditable first baseman on the fly–but the Twins insisted on using him as a utility player. Even if he started hitting, Baldelli’s practice is to move his players around and give them rest, whether needed or not. Would this have hurt Arraez, rather than helped him? We’ll never know. For now, let’s just marvel at his bat control and the joy he gets playing the game. Who would have thought I would ever start my day by searching out the Miami Marlins box score!
June 16: Two miserable performances against the formerly miserable Detroit Tigers have convinced me to stop watching the Twins until they indicate a desire to win by doing something about Byron Buxton (I almost called him the black hole in their lineup, but caught myself). Yesterday’s roster move sent Larnach down and reinstated Buxton from the IL. He has, so far, five strikeouts to show for himself, while batting cleanup yesterday and third today. No hits and the average down to .211. Personally, I would have ditched Gallo for good instead of Larnach, but there may be something in Gallo’s veteran status that prevents a trip to the minors, whereas Larnach might conceivably improve by playing everyday. But on to the Buxton problem.
And it is a real problem. The online critics are so over him, a combination of his outsized salary, his longstanding underproduction, his constant trips to the IL, the pampering he is getting this year from management and the continuing over-the-top claims of how great a talent he is. When he first came up, Twins expert Clark Griffith assured me that he would never hit. Griffith identified some problem in Buxton’s swing that I can’t recall which he thought was fatal. Now we hear from Doug Mientkiewicz that the Twins mismanaged Buxton in the minors by not batting him in the middle of the lineup where he would have had to learn to hit sliders. For whatever reason, except for a month here and there Buxton has been strikeout-prone as well as injury-prone. I have long been annoyed by his habit of looking back over his shoulder at the pitcher as he walks back to the dugout after striking out, like “how did he do that,” instead of taking responsibility on himself. He hits the ball hard when he does connect, but his connections are usually off a mistake pitch from a mediocre pitcher. When the game is on the line his at-bats are abysmal.
The Twins make a big deal about their record being better with Buxton in the lineup, but we’ll see if their current collapse coincides with his return. Since they have to use him, because of what they’re paying him, my solution is simple: Let him play centerfield every other day. Maybe that will wake up his bat. Maybe playing in the outfield will give him back some of the confidence he needs to hit. This will free up the DH spot for other Twins who are hitting better. And if playing in the field leads to injury, the Twins are probably better with him on the IL anyway. His most recent injury, in any case, didn’t come from playing centerfield–he was hit in the ribs while batting. Unless and until the Twins show a willingness to shake things up, I’m just not that interested.
June 15: One thing that sets Major League Baseball apart, aside from its 162-game season, is the accessibility and transparency of personnel management. In football, who really knows how a left guard is performing, or whether a team has better options. In the NBA, five of a roster’s 13 players may hardly see the floor, and how can an outsider assess team chemistry, which can be more impactful than individual performance. In baseball, on the other hand, you can see and evaluate every play made by all 26 players and have your own opinion of who should be playing where and when. No manager or general manager is exempt from scrutiny and second-guessing.
The Twins have won four of five games and are 3.5 games in front of their most dangerous rival, the Guardians. Almost everyone on the current roster has been a contributor to this surge. But this surge has been built while three highly paid regulars have been on the Injured List: Byron Buxton, Jorge Polanco and Kenta Maeda. All will be eligible and physically ready to return to action probably within a week. Also, currently on the AAA roster are outfielder Matt Wallner, who excelled in a brief stint with the Twins earlier this year, and Jose Miranda, who led the Twins in RBI last year and is rediscovering his form. But adding any of them will mean subtracting someone else. This is where the guessing, and the fun, comes in.
Twins tradition is to send the younger player down to the minors in favor of the veteran, but the two newest additions, Royce Lewis and Eduoardo Julien, have captured the fans’ attention and given every indication that they are the future of the team. Willi Castro, Donovan Solano, Michael A. Taylor and Kyle Farmer were all picked up as free agents over the winter, presumably as stopgaps and placeholders, but each of them has been invaluable in getting the Twins to first place. Trevor Larnach (.211), Max Kepler (.193) and Joey Gallo (.194) would all seem expendable. Moves will be made, and I’m sure I won’t agree.
June 14: PS. A Stupid Rule. On Sunday (7/11) the Twins blew a game, 7-6, to the Blue Jays when Emilio Pagan gave up two singles and a home run in the 8th inning, but the loss equally belonged to Carlos Correa, whose throw in the dirt on the back end of a sure double play allowed the Jays’ three previous runs to score. One run came in on the play, two more when the next batter hit a home run with two outs. Twins pitcher Louie Varland was charged with three earned runs, because you can’t presume a double play. In other words, if the defense gets the first out on a force, they won’t be charged with an error for not completing the double play, even if the throw from second to first clearly beats the runner. Why not? The throw from second to first is not inherently difficult; infielders practice it all the time, to the point it’s second nature. It’s not like a ground ball that’s “too hot to handle,” or a bad hop that handcuffs the infielder. It’s a play that’s totally within the control and competence of the middle infielder. If he throws wildly, or if the first baseman drops the throw, it’s an error in the mind of everyone but the official scorer. I’ve yet to hear an argument that supports this “rule,” nor can I think of any. Well, something good happened, and you can’t count on anything more. Really? It certainly affects one’s opinion of the fielder’s play, and his evaluation deserves downgrading. More humanely, it’s unfair to the pitcher, in this case Varland, who would have exited the game having given up only one run instead of three had Correa made a halfway decent throw, resulting in a major bump in his ERA. Anyone?
June 13: I noticed that the Guardians demoted James Karinchak to the minors after an ineffective outing that left him with a 3.90 ERA in 30 games, after having been a “mainstay” in the Guardians bullpen, especially against the Twins, for the last four years. Which reminded me of something missing from the Twins’ management style: accountability. I keep waiting to read in the StarTribune that 1. Kepler, with his .187 batting average, has been replaced as the regular right fielder; 2. Correa, hitting .150 with runners in scoring position, has been dropped to sixth in the batting order; and 3. Pagan, 1,128 of 1,133 in “win-probability-added” since 2021, has been designated for assignment. But no, Baldelli keeps trotting them out, despite clearly more promising alternatives, led by Matt Wallner in right field. Lefty reliever Brent Headrick looked good in his one shot with the Twins and leads the Saints in strikeouts. And Kyle Farmer, a quite competent shortstop, is hitting .261 vs. Correa’s .217. Why is this? One theory is that Baldelli wants to build these guys’ confidence and thinks that benching them when appropriate would hurt, not help, their superior long-term value. The other is that the front office needs to save face and/or protect its investments. Correa, Pagan and Kepler are all big-contract players and not playing them, in favor of cheaper talent, would be an admission of misguided spending. The next test will be Jorge Lopez, who has underperformed since signing a huge long-term deal. Or will, at some point, Baldelli/Falvine say to their “stars,” if you don’t produce there will be consequences. I.e., accountability.
June 11: Just when I was ready for my weekly give-up on the Twins–i.e., they struck out 16 times!– they erupted in the most uncharacteristic 8th inning of their year. Larnach, who has been useless since his return from the IL, hit a home run for the first run in the 7th. Correa, whom I regularly malign for his lack of clutch hitting, then put the Twins ahead 5-3 with a grand slam! (after Kiriloff continued a year-long theme by striking out with the bases loaded and no outs). The more maligned Kessler added a three-run shot and the Twins were clear to rise above .500. Will this be the start of the long-awaited offensive awakening, or merely a footnote, an aberration, to strikeout summer?
June 10: The Twins broke their five-game losing streak with an unsatisfying win at Toronto. Once again the offense was dormant, their only runs in nine innings coming on a two-run homer by Michael A. Taylor. Royce Lewis went 4-for-4–good for him–without a hard-hit ball, but showing the value of “putting the ball in play,” a missing strategy for most of the Minnesota hitters. The suspect outfield troika of Kepler, Larnach, Garlick was 0-for-5. Correa got another hit to raise his average further above .200, but it was another inconsequential hit. It seems that when the opposing team needs to get him out, they know how to do so, often easily. Baldelli secured the win by using his closer, Jhoan Duran, for two tough innings–not because he was dominant (in fact he had runners in scoring position in all but the first at-bat), but because he doesn’t trust anyone else in his bullpen. And Caleb Thielbar, who would have been used earlier in the season, went back on the injured list, perhaps for a long time.
June 8: The Twins lost their fourth straight last night and fell to .500 for the season, but I didn’t mind because: 1. I didn’t watch the game (watched excellent Happy Valley instead). 2. They came back to tie the score 1-1 in the 9th; 3. on an rbi single by their promising star and already best clutch hitter Royce Lewis. 4. They could have won if a subsequent hard smash down third with one out and the bases loaded by Ryan Jeffers had gone through instead of being turned into a remarkable inning-ending double play. 5. The ensuing loss was mercifully clean and quick, a home run by one of the best, Randy Arozarena, on the second pitch from the Twins’ best reliever, Jhoan Duran–and it wasn’t a bad pitch. And 6. the Twins were in the game because Pablo Lopez gave up only one solo home run in pitching his best seven innings in the month since he signed his long-term contract, a first ray of hope that trading Luis Arraez (now hitting .403) for him won’t rank as the worst trade in Twins history.
June 4: Ah, the dreaded 7th inning! In hindsight, the time to take out starter Joe Ryan was immediately after he walked his first batter and had to face the Guardians’ most dangerous clutch hitter, a lefty, no less. But hey, there were two outs in the 7th, he was pitching a one-hitter, and you had to let him finish the inning for a chance to get the win in the unlikely event the Twins could score even one run, didn’t you? Let’s just say it didn’t go well. But why obsess on the Twins’ pitching when their offense is so feeble? When they did get a runner to second with no out, the next two batters struck out. When they threatened in the 9th, Willi Castro, who accounted for their only run with a homer, struck out swinging on three pitches in the dirt. And having Max Kepler bat cleanup? Please! I will take the Twins’ chances seriously only when they jettison Kepler and see what Matt Wallner, or even Trevor Larnach, can do.
June 3: What’s a manager to do? The last time Sonny Gray pitched, manager Rocco Baldelli pulled him in the 7th inning with a one-run lead when two runners reached base, despite Gray’s having thrown only 79 pitches. Reliever Jorge Lopez let those two runners score, plus two of his own. Online critics screamed, Why take out your best pitcher? Let him pitch his own game. Then tonight Gray is again cruising into the 7th with a 2-1 lead. The first batter singles and Baldelli leaves him in. The next batter homered and Gray went down to his first loss of the year. Last year Baldelli, with a weaker rotation, never let a starter pitch the 7th inning, leading to a chorus of off-season complaints, notably including by Gray. Let the starters pitch longer and save the bullpen from overwork. Ideally, Baldelli would prefer, I’m sure, to have his starters pitche six innings and have three shutdown relievers finish the job with an inning each. This year that would be Griffin Jax in the 7th, Jorge Lopez the 8th and Jhoan Duran as closer. Unfortunately, Jax sprung a leak and Lopez is on pace for worst-reliever-of-the-month honors. And utterly reliable Caleb Thielbar has been injured. This has led Baldelli to use Duran for five and six outs and the rise of other relievers to prominent roles. It will be interesting to see how Baldelli approaches the 7th inning the next time Gray pitches, and with his other starters as well.
May 28: The futility of preseason prognostication in baseball was never more apparent than in Saturday’s Twins victory over the Blue Jays. Minnesota won, 9-7, on the strength of two home runs from Willi Castro and one each from Eduoard Julien and Matt Wallner, plus effective relief pitching from Jovani Moran and a clutch save by Brock Stewart. None of those names were even mentioned in my scouting report. On the other hand, reliance on projected minor leaguers might not be a long-term solution, either, as the Twins fell 3-0 the next day, bringing their 12-game record to 4-8.
Then on Monday, the Twins had one of their more surprising wins, and their first in Houston in two years, thanks to Royce Lewis, playing his first game since being injured exactly one year ago. His three-run homer gave the Twins a big lead, which they later relinquished, and his 9th-inning, two-out, game-tying run-scoring single off previously impeccable Ryan Pressley qualifies as perhaps the biggest clutch hit of the year. The Twins have been notorious for not getting “the big hit,” and when they have given up a lead late in the game have regularly gone docilely to defeat. Whether Lewis will rub off on his teammates, or whether the Twins will rub off on him, is probably the biggest question mark on the rest of this season, if not the club’s near future.
The other questions, all related to remnants of the preseason view: how long will the Twins stick with Max Kepler if his weak hitting continues, given the other options that have now arisen–including Castro and Wallner if not Trevor Larnach? Same for Joey Gallo, now that Alex Kiriloff seems entrenched as their first baseman of the future? The tougher issues are Carlos Correa and Byron Buxton, if only because they are being paid a king’s ransom each. So far they have been dead weight in the middle of a lifeless batting order. Buxton has value as a baserunner but when he strikes out two or three times a game he is not much of a baserunner, and by not playing centerfield he is clogging up the DH spot, which Baldelli would normally use to give his regulars a day off their feet. Correa hits one ball hard a game, but it is often caught, and his swings-and-misses are shockingly bad. The assumption is that he will hit at least .270 or .280 for the year, but he is running out of time. Kyle Farmer has been a much better hitter, partly because he swings to make contact not hit home runs, but he doesn’t have a big or long-term contract. Will Baldelli be able to go with the hot hand and give the team the best chance to win each day (as football coaches like to say about their quarterback), or will he be stuck with the front office’s decisions, as reflected in the player contracts?
