What if the Twins talent level keeps getting better, but their game execution keeps getting worse
Entry posted by Hans Birkeland in Futurevision ·
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Twins Video
The hitters are good, the pitchers are good, everyone is hurt and the team is fading fast. I traveled through time to give you the beat report from June 6th, 2025:
These Twins are hard to figure out. Sure, they lead the league in run differential but something seems to be missing for the club, now 25-35 and one game out of first place in the AL Central after being swept by Cleveland while being outscored by three runs.
“We’re taking good at-bats; we just can’t seem to scrape across that one crucial run when we need it most. I tried shaving my privates and confessing all my sins, but nothing seems to work,” said manager Joe Maddon.
The team is at a crossroads. They’ve pitched well, with Joe Ryan, Bailey Ober and Matt Wallner all posting ERAs under 2.00. They’ve hit well overall too, with eight lineup regulars hitting above a .900 OPS, and only minor league signing Max Kepler below that mark. The bullpen has had good moments too, as Derek Falvey describes:
“Imagine where we’d be without Jhoan Duran. Since he learned how to throw so hard that he broke the space time continuum and subtracted runs the other team has already scored, he’s really been a boost. It’s a shame we can only use him for three innings once a month.”
He continued:
“Having a -1.20 ERA guy at the back of the bullpen is super sick.”
The team has also rallied around Royce Lewis, who missed 2024 with what is being colloquially described as Royce Lewis Surgery, and is recovering from a gunshot wound currently. Lewis’ positivity is something his teammates are inspired by, and they hope for a quick recovery for Lewis, who was hitting .400 with nine home runs in fourteen games this year.
“I’d be lying if I said I didn’t want to be out there with my teammates,” said Lewis, “But at the end of the day I can only control what I can control. Even though the gunman looked like Gabriel Arias, we can’t know for sure, so I’m just going to put in my work and get back on the field, hopefully by 2027.”
The first place Guardians certainly know how to win games, although their record sits below .500 at the moment. They expect Jose Ramirez back soon from a facial laceration suffered when his helmet popped off during a swing, tripped Ryan Jeffers (who suffered a torn ACL) and popped back and grazed Ramirez’s cheek. Jeffers was leading the All-Star voting at catcher at the time. Said Ramirez:
"The doctors told me if I didn't stick so much chew in my cheeks this wouldn't have happened. It was the wake-up call I needed to quit tobacco for good. Thanks Ryan Jeffers."
When asked, Jeffers added the following:
"The doctors told me if they find a donor I might be able to walk again."
The Guardians are hitting for a .490 OPS as a team, but that hasn’t caused them to change their approach. Manager Terry Francona has grown a curly mustache and admits his only goal is to frustrate more talented teams by trying to put every ball in play. The plan hasn’t worked exactly- Cleveland is 0-18 against the Astros, Rays and Yankees, but a perfect 7-0 against the Twins, despite playing them only six times.
“I’m proud of our guys,” said Francona, “Sure, George Valera had a .600 slugging percentage in Triple-A but seeing him get a bloop hit against an All-Star like Bailey Ober, advancing to second on the gunshot to Lewis and getting to third when we bunted and Ober forgot he was right-handed, and scoring when God himself descended from heaven and gave the middle finger to the Twins dugout which distracted everyone and allowed him to score, that was nice work. We have a scrappy group.”
Despite ranking number one in pitching and hitting as a team, a first for the franchise this deep into the season, the Twins are being talked about as sellers at the deadline. Falvey admitted as such to the media Friday:
“Look, we aren't where we want to be. Fortunately for me and Thad, we signed under-the-table ten year extensions before the tie-breaking loss to the Tigers in game 162 of 2023. This team has a lot of talent but clearly we need to reshuffle things if we want to compete going forward. We saw the Guardians just trade their ace Triston McKenzie for nineteen top one hundred prospects last week so we have to keep pace.”
Asked if Carlos Correa would ever escape from Russian state prison, Falvey laughed. “We don’t expect Carlos back this year. His ankle is fine, we think if he can strike a deal to serve in the Russian army for a couple years he can return stateside by 2028.”
DH Byron Buxton is another story. It came out last week that he has been playing with a serrated knife plunged into his lower abdomen, meaning his pursuit of the major league home run record may have to wait. When asked about the injury, he told Do-Young Park of MLB.com, “Have you ever had a knife in your dick? I would advise against it.”
All that said, the Twins are an exciting team this year. Hopefully a little patience goes a long way and they hit their stride, unlike in 2024 when their twenty game win streak to start the year was curtailed when the visiting clubhouse at Guaranteed Rate Field had a sewage explosion and everyone on the team got Hepatitis A and Cole Sands died.
“We’re a good team,” said leadoff hitter Willi Castro, ”Obviously we’ve had a few breaks not go our way but there’s a lot of fight in this team. Not many teams can navigate the number of funerals we attend, but if we keep scoring runs and pitching the way we have, we’ll be fine.”
Up next: Tuesday’s opening game against the Royals has been suspended because pitcher Louie Varland has obtained WMDs. Varland claims he doesn't know how he got them, he was just trying to get ahead in the count.
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