Braves 6, Twins 2: At Least SOMEONE's Season Got Resurrected This Weekend

[Hans Birkeland]

The Braves wore Joe Ryan out, then capitalized on his mistakes, while the Twins offense was again dormant—against a pitcher without his best stuff. This might be a long season, folks.

Image courtesy of © Dale Zanine-Imagn Images

Box Score:
Starting Pitcher: Joe Ryan: 5 IP, 8 H, 6 ER, 1 BB, 5 K (93 Pitches, 65 Strikes, 69.9%)
Home Runs: Byron Buxton (4)
Bottom 3 WPA: Ryan (-.286), Edouard Julien (-.097), Brooks Lee (-.093)
Win Probability Chart (Via Fangraphs):

The Twins wrapped up their series in Atlanta today after gifting the Braves two winnable games and awakening the perennial contender from its early season doldrums. Joe Ryan got the start for Minnesota, coming off an outing against the Mets in which he labored but gave the Twins five strong innings.

As a California "Deadhead" laboring isn't Ryan's favorite vibe. Teams know that when the righthander is healthy and throwing well, the only way to counter him is to work long at-bats and hope to wear Ryan down, with a solo home run or two thrown in. Unfortunately for Ryan today, the home plate umpire called two clear strikes as balls to second place hitter Austin Riley, extending Ryan's pitch count and turning what looked like a quick inning, into a much longer affair. The horrid Marcell Ozuna worked a walk and Matt Olson finally caught up with a mistake fastball and rocketed a two-run home run to give the Braves a 2-0 lead. Ryan threw 32 pitches in the frame.

That could have been workable except the Twins anemic offense offered no early fight against Braves journeyman starter Kenny Powers Grant Holmes. Following the long inning for Ryan, the Twins went down in order on eight pitches, forcing Ryan back out with hardly a chance to sit down. He retired the first two hitters of the second fairly easily, but then a barrage of singles scored a third run.

The third was similar- after two outs, Michael Harris turned on a hanging splitter and roped it for a double, and then the highly touted rookie Drake Baldwin pounced on a 92 MPH fastball not quite high enough in the zone, and pummeled it the other way for a two-run home run.

The Twins at least made Holmes work in the fourth. After Trevor Larnach ripped a one out single, so did Carlos Correa. Ryan Jeffers was hit by a pitch on his wrist and stayed in the game. After Luke Keaschall popped out, Holmes spiked a slider that Baldwin couldn't handle, allowing Larnach to score the first Twins run. Brooks Lee made good contact in his at-bat, but Harris tracked down the liner in the gap to record the final out.

As expected, a rejuvenated Ryan then had his easiest inning, setting down the Braves 1-2-3.

Holmes continued to struggle with his command, walking the free-swinging Harrison Bader to lead off the fifth before leaving a cutter up for Buxton to lace into the gap for a double. Holmes then walked Ty France, perhaps equal to Bader in free-swingedness, to load the bases. But Larnach struck out looking on the juiciest pitch of the at-bat, a fastball middle-in, and Correa tapped out to get Holmes off the hook.

Ozuna, sadly still not incarcerated, jumped on an inside sinker from Ryan and delivered it into the left field bleachers.

The Twins put two more runners on in the sixth, but Julien tapped out to strand the Twins' eighth runner in a span of three innings.

Buxton did launch a no-doubt home run in the seventh to continue his strong stretch of games.

Louis Varland, Jhoan Duran and Danny Coulombe pitched scoreless innings. All three are having nice years, at least.

Trends:

	Healthy	Hurt
Performing
Contributing
Low Impact/Slumping
IL/Minors
C	Ryan Jeffers	Christian Vazquez
1B	Ty France
2B	Mickey Gasper ?	Brooks Lee	Edouard Julien
3B	Royce Lewis	Jose Miranda	Jonah Bride
SS	Carlos Correa ?
LF	Trevor Larnach
CF	Byron Buxton ?	Harrison Bader	DaShawn Keirsey Jr.
RF	Matt Wallner
UTIL	Willi Castro ?	Luke Keaschall ?
SP1	Pablo Lopez	Bailey Ober ?	Joe Ryan
SP2	Chris Paddack	Simeon Woods Richardson
CR	Jhoan Duran ?	Griffin Jax ?
SR	Brock Stewart	Louis Varland ?	Cole Sands
MR	Danny Coloumbe	Justin Topa	Michael Tonkin
LR	Randy Dobnak	Jorge Alcala	Kody Funderburk

 

What’s Next: Bailey Ober (1-1, 6.16 ERA) takes on Davis Martin (1-2, 4.84 ERA) as the Twins open a series at Target Field against the White Sox. Martin has been functional thus, far, but his peripheral numbers are rough. Ober has been pretty good since his opening clunker in St. Louis and will look to continue to have success against a White Sox lineup against whom statistics do count.

Postgame Interviews:

(Coming soon)

Bullpen Usage Chart:

	WED	THU	FRI	SAT	SUN	TOT
Jax	22	0	26	0	0	48
Varland	19	0	18	0	6	43
Topa	0	0	17	24	0	41
Alcalá	0	0	0	39	0	39
Coulombe	9	0	17	0	8	34
Durán	19	0	0	0	11	30
Sands	7	0	13	0	0	20
Stewart	0	0	0	13	0	13

 

 

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[thelanges5]

Woof. 0-11 against ATL since 2019. Hard to see any bright spots. Keaschall and …

[Badgolfer34]

    Thank god the NFL draft is almost here and we can start thinking of football. Born and raised a Twins fan and I am done with the them. Ownership has no respect for the Twins fan and just goes the motions of being a caring owner.

[Vanimal46]

[bean5302]

Definitely all the umps' fault Ryan gave up 8 hits. If Ryan would have only gotten that strikeout with 3 fewer pitches that inning, it would have been a shutout for sure. 

[bean5302]

The Twins' hitters are absolutely floundering out there. For every hitter who looks like they're coming out of a slump, there are 3-4 starting one or going back into one.

[CRF]

Getting pretty damn close to blowing this thing up. This team is going nowhere. 

[mikelink45]

Oh man, does this hurt.  How about a six man rotation and get Zebby up - maybe a seven and get Morris up too.  

Don't hurry with the post game interview - who cares? 

Julien's hot streak is over.

Keaschall - thank you, no matter what else the season gives us you have provided a spark - not to the team, but to the fans.   The only player hitting over 250 - Bader is at 250 and the rest - I guess its Buxton's turn to be hot and look like an all-star now that Eddie is done.  

And I look at these three relievers who did their job and wonder why Topa who has never started would be the opener when Varland knows how to start?  Oh well, that was yesterday's misery.

[jkcarew]

I’m starting to worry that we might not collapse down the stretch this year.

[RpR]

Keaschell is not a wonder kid but he is holding his own right now.

[Galen]

Should be easy to get some good tickets for us out-of-towners

[LeatherAntenna]

At least the fans get an off day on Monday.

[jkcarew]

27 minutes ago, Galen said:

Should be easy to get some good tickets for us out-of-towners

Worth a shot. With any kind of luck at all, it’ll rain, and you can go do something fun!

[tony&rodney]

The Twins get an opportunity in the next two series. More will follow but 6 games at home should give the team a little boost. Quite a few batters are looking futile. Something has to give. Can the Twins be at 13-15 heading to Cleveland?

[Nashvilletwin]

6 minutes ago, tony&rodney said:

The Twins get an opportunity in the next two series. More will follow but 6 games at home should give the team a little boost. Quite a few batters are looking futile. Something has to give. Can the Twins be at 13-15 heading to Cleveland?

Love the optimism.

 

[jkcarew]

8 minutes ago, tony&rodney said:

The Twins get an opportunity in the next two series. More will follow but 6 games at home should give the team a little boost. Quite a few batters are looking futile. Something has to give. Can the Twins be at 13-15 heading to Cleveland?

Have a point! Playing really bad teams at home can dig you out of a whole. Take Atlanta, for instance.

[rv78]

Try not to watch. You can't help it? Then try not to laugh. And try to understand what Rocco is doing. Too late. I'll never understand. Only a brainless wonder can do this crap. Why does Topa start a game instead of your normal starter? You obviously didn't need to do a bullpen game if you're going to use your starter anyway. Dumb. Why does Sands get the call in a game that you are leading when you need a lock down guy to save the win instead of using your Ace closer, Duran. Then you use your stud closer 2 days later in a game when you are behind by 4 runs. Stupid. Seriously, a 10 year old could manage this club better.

[IndyTwinsFan]

10 minutes ago, tony&rodney said:

The Twins get an opportunity in the next two series. More will follow but 6 games at home should give the team a little boost. Quite a few batters are looking futile. Something has to give. Can the Twins be at 13-15 heading to Cleveland?

For some strange reason, I rather doubt it.

A team that already seems to have packed it in is not suddenly going to become motivated at home by playing 2 teams of roughly equal talent that at least give the impression of trying to win.  That's more than I can say about us right now.

[IndyTwinsFan]

7 minutes ago, jkcarew said:

Have a point! Playing really bad teams at home can dig you out of a whole. Take Atlanta, for instance.

One problem is that Atlanta is at least trying to win, which is more than I can say about us now.

[S Bart]

Please NOTE that my gut reaction is that the Twins (currently 7-15) are in for a long season and a dumping of players via trades may be on the horizon. Nevertheless, it is still early in the season. I looked back at the championship seasons. The '87 Twins were 8-13 in mid-April and the '91 started off 2-9. Unfortunately, I question if the team has the fortitude to have even a 500 season. If there are not good performances against the 5-16 White Sox and the 10-10 fading Angels this week, a good swan song may be in order for the loudspeakers at Target Field.

[Nashvilletwin]

32 minutes ago, tony&rodney said:

The Twins get an opportunity in the next two series. More will follow but 6 games at home should give the team a little boost. Quite a few batters are looking futile. Something has to give. Can the Twins be at 13-15 heading to Cleveland?

Actually, your point is a good one.   However, the opposite is true as well.  Go 0-6, 1-5, or even 2-4 against these teams and staying with Rocco will pretty much be indefensible.

Big week possibly.  Honestly, I hope we win them all, but if we lose more than we win this week and Rocco is replaced, well, that might just be the best outcome.

[FlyingFinn]

I'll be the lone ranger here (almost), I think the Twins can turn this around. Everything begins with starting pitching - between Lopez, Ober, Ryan, Paddack, SWR, Festa and Matthews, we start getting 6 quality innings every day from 5 of them. The bullpen can be really good (Jax is the main problem and he will be good for most of the year). Buxton certainly looks the old Buxton and he stays healthy (okay, okay, so that's my weakest point thus far). We do have a great defense with Bader/Buxton/Wallner in the OF (I know Larnach will be out there some because Bader is already slipping back to his historic hitting #'s and we have Kiersey for late innings) and Lewis, Correa, Lee, Keaschall, France (some combination) in the IF and Jeffers/Vazquez at C. We just have to score enough runs. 

All of the above, especially the starting pitching, means this team can actually go on long winning streaks. Other teams have turned things around with this formula. Thus far, we haven't and we look like the Fort Myers defense, like we are the Bad News Bears.

[knothole61]

The Twins' current predicament reminds me of that old adage about a missing nail in a horseshoe starting a chain of events that resulted in the loss of a battle and ultimately a war.

Bear with me for a second: the Twins left for Atlanta to face the last place, 5-13 Braves with a bit of momentum having just  taken a series from a very good, $323 million team. After a day off they came out charging and built a 4-1 lead going into the 8th. I believe that if the Twins had managed to win that game it's likely that they would have taken, if not swept, the series. The gut wrenching loss, however, lifted the spirits of the Braves and put a genuine damper on Minnesota's momentum, resulting at least to some extent, in the ugly sweep we've just witnessed.

Analytics and matchups, etc. have their place, but as long as baseball is played by human beings, factors such as mood,  motivation, and momentum will play a major role in determining outcomes. Without the Jax/Sands 8th inning meltdown the Twins might be 10-12 right now and heading home with a 5-game winning streak to face the Sox and a chance to move past .500

"For the want of a nail..."

 

 

 

.

 

 

[D.C Twins]

Don't worry everyone... Tonkin is on the way back... he'll save the day 🤡

[D.C Twins]

This is a really poor hitting team.... at this rate, we may not have much to sell in the inevitable fire sale!

[Blyleven2011]

I've said it before and I hate saying it again  , this team is very hard to watch , they are putting me to sleep  , I don't have to watch GOĹF anymore for a afternoon nap ....

Pathetic pitiful piss poor pukey  playing ...

[D.C Twins]

58 minutes ago, tony&rodney said:

The Twins get an opportunity in the next two series. More will follow but 6 games at home should give the team a little boost. Quite a few batters are looking futile. Something has to give. Can the Twins be at 13-15 heading to Cleveland?

(Narrator with a slight chuckle but quickly recovers his professional demeanor and states in a deep and commanding voice:)

  No... no they cannot. 

[Mark G]

44 minutes ago, S Bart said:

Please NOTE that my gut reaction is that the Twins (currently 7-15) are in for a long season and a dumping of players via trades may be on the horizon. Nevertheless, it is still early in the season. I looked back at the championship seasons. The '87 Twins were 8-13 in mid-April and the '91 started off 2-9. Unfortunately, I question if the team has the fortitude to have even a 500 season. If there are not good performances against the 5-16 White Sox and the 10-10 fading Angels this week, a good swan song may be in order for the loudspeakers at Target Field.

Those teams had Tom Kelly as their manager.  We have.............

[Mark G]

17 minutes ago, knothole61 said:

The Twins' current predicament reminds me of that old adage about a missing nail in a horseshoe starting a chain of events that resulted in the loss of a battle and ultimately a war.

Bear with me for a second: the Twins left for Atlanta to face the last place, 5-13 Braves with a bit of momentum having just  taken a series from a very good, $323 million team. After a day off they came out charging and built a 4-1 lead going into the 8th. I believe that if the Twins had managed to win that game it's likely that they would have taken, if not swept, the series. The gut wrenching loss, however, lifted the spirits of the Braves and put a genuine damper on Minnesota's momentum, resulting at least to some extent, in the ugly sweep we've just witnessed.

Analytics and matchups, etc. have their place, but as long as baseball is played by human beings, factors such as mood,  motivation, and momentum will play a major role in determining outcomes. Without the Jax/Sands 8th inning meltdown the Twins might be 10-12 right now and heading home with a 5-game winning streak to face the Sox and a chance to move past .500

"For the want of a nail..."

 

 

 

.

 

 

I genuinely love the sentiment, but it is like the article saying if the umpire had just not missed those two strikes........

[DJL44]

2 hours ago, bean5302 said:

Definitely all the umps' fault Ryan gave up 8 hits. 

The umpire blew a couple calls, but Joe Ryan didn't need to throw a fit on the mound. That was quite unprofessional. The Braves pitchers were also having trouble getting strikes called but I didn't see them throw their equipment into the dugout.

The only interesting thing left for this season is seeing what they get in return for the trades they're going to make. On the plus side, I'm getting a lot more reading done during the games. I nearly finished a memoir this weekend.