Athletics 6, Twins 3: Twins Gloves Let Down Their Ace, Lowly A's Take Advantage

[Steven Trefz]

Image courtesy of © Jesse Johnson-Imagn Images

Box Score
SP: Joe Ryan 4.0 IP, 5 H, 2 ER, 1 BB, 6 K (87 pitches, 57 strikes (66%))
Home Runs: Brooks Lee (13), Ryan Jeffers (9)
Bottom 3 WPA: Ryan (-.310), Royce Lewis (-.131), Byron Buxton (-.095)

Win Probability Chart (via FanGraphs) 

Though it didn't match nationwide household names, Tuesday night's contest at Target Field featured two aces: Joe Ryan (him, you know) and Jacob Lopez. Healthy deeper into a season than ever before, Ryan has been pitching tremendously. The bad news for the Twins: Lopez has been even better, allowing no runs across his last 24 innings entering this game, and he's left-handed. You've already read the headline; here's how the bad news unfolded.

Twins Strike First, but the A's Strike Most
Nick Kurtz led off the game with a double, but Ryan utilized strikeouts to keep him from scoring and to get the Twins' bats out to face Lopez. Right away, it was clear that the team had an effective plan against the southpaw, despite their diminished roster. They put two runners on in the first, though they failed to score. In the second, an error by Sacramento third baseman Brett Harris opened the door and Matt Wallner stormed through it, with an RBI double that gave the Twins a 1-0 lead.

Quickly, however, the game swerved in the direction of the visitors. A two-out walk of Nick Kurtz brought Ryan into a matchup with catcher Shea Langeliers, who crushed a two-run homer to flip the scoreboard in the top of the third. To lead off the fourth, Tyler Soderstrom hit a ground ball that took Brooks Lee to his right (he'd been shading him toward the second-base bag) and reached when Lee was unable to get off a good throw. Lawrence Butler then hit a screaming grounder through the right side, which Luke Keaschall could only deflect, turning it into a double.

With runners on second and third, Sacramento shortstop Darell Hernaiz hit a chopper to Royce Lewis at third. Lewis made the throw across the diamond, but Kody Clemens couldn't squeeze it, and Hernaiz reached, loading the bases. Ryan struck out JJ Bleday, but Harris then scooped a shallow flare to right field. Keaschall caught the fly ball for the second out, but his lack of arm strength became apparent as he was unable to throw out the tagging Soderstrom; the A's now led 3-1. A single by Luis Urías and a double by Kurtz stretched it to 5-1 Athletics, and Ryan's night became his shortest outing of the year. A good defense gets him out of that inning without a run scoring. An average one holds it to a single tally.

Bombas Attempt to Rally
With one out in the bottom of the fourth, the Twins struck back. Lee went with a Lopez outside fastball to make it a 5-2 ballgame. 

With two outs, it was Ryan Jeffers's turn, and he and his nasal strip pulled one right down the left-field line to tighten the game even more at 5-3.

Pierson Ohl Attempts to Hold
After Ryan's short start, the Twins handed things off to rookie Pierson Ohl. Ohl managed to make quick work of the A's in the top of the fifth, but he ran into some more "almost outs" bad luck in the top of the sixth. This time, Hernaiz kept his helmet on, and hit a ball into the right-field gap that glanced off the tip of a diving Byron Buxton's glove for a double. Hernaiz advanced to third on a solid running catch from Buxton into the left-field gap, and then scampered home on a Harris single through the drawn-in infield to make it 6-3 Athletics. Ohl rebounded to take care of business again in the top of the seventh and eighth innings, to keep the game within striking distance.

Twins Can't Cash In Against A's Bullpen
Lopez left after six innings, surrendering three runs on only four hits but in line for his seventh win of the season. Justin Sterner got the call from the bullpen, and he mowed down the Twins in the bottom of the seventh before running into a bit of trouble in the eighth. With two outs, Trevor Larnach and Keaschall hit back-to-back singles to put runners on the corners. The potential tying run, Lewis, watched a first-pitch fastball go right down the middle, before eventually popping up to the infield to end the threat.

After Erasmo Ramirez scattered a double and an intentional walk to keep a scoreless top of the ninth, the Twins took their cuts against lefty closer Hogan Harris. While he isn't the recently traded Mason Miller, he did just fine against the Minnesota lineup. Lee, Clemens, and Austin Martin all tried, but none succeeded, and the Twins lost yet again.

What’s Next?
The Twins look to redeem themselves on Wednesday evening in a rematch against the A's. Twins righty Bailey Ober (4-7, 5.15 ERA) will attempt to right the ship. The Athletics will counter with RHP J.T. Ginn (2-5, 5.04 ERA) in an attempt to drive the Twins deeper down the standings. First pitch is scheduled for 6:40 pm CDT.

Postgame Interviews
Coming Soon

Bullpen Usage Spreadsheet

	FRI	SAT	SUN	MON	TUE	TOT
Hatch	0	0	81	0	0	81
Ureña	76	0	0	0	0	76
Ohl	0	0	0	0	54	54
Ramírez	8	0	16	0	25	49
Tonkin	0	15	16	0	0	31
Kriske	0	29	0	0	0	29
Topa	0	27	0	0	0	27
Sands	0	0	14	0	0	14
Funderburk	0	10	0	0	0	10
Cabrera	0	0	9	0	0	9

 

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[thelanges5]

Gleeman:

Twins and Astros are both 7-10 since the Carlos Correa trade.

[Vanimal46]

8-19 against left handed and breathing starting pitchers. 5 of those wins came during the 13 game win streak. The offense continues to make any left handed pitcher look like Mark Buerhle in his prime. 

Are we gonna continue letting Royce flail away in the majors? His plate appearances have been non-competitive for a long time now. 

[dberthia]

When you're beaten soundly by a "lowly" team, perhaps it is you that is lowly. Just sayin...

[h2oface]

30 minutes ago, Vanimal46 said:

Are we gonna continue letting Royce flail away in the majors? His plate appearances have been non-competitive for a long time now. 

Should have traded him for Hunter Greene, Correct that. Should have drafted Hunter Greene instead.

[Vanimal46]

1 minute ago, h2oface said:

Should have traded him for Hunter Greene, Correct that. Should have drafted Hunter Greene instead.

Maybe we’ll get another #1 overall pick after this year to care about a draft class that much again. I was a fan of another left handed breathing SP Mackenzie Gore. So far taking either pitcher was a better option. Imagine if we sold high on Lewis when he was a consensus top 5 prospect in baseball… butterfly effect 

[Parfigliano]

38 minutes ago, Vanimal46 said:

8-19 against left handed and breathing starting pitchers. 5 of those wins came during the 13 game win streak. The offense continues to make any left handed pitcher look like Mark Buerhle in his prime. 

Are we gonna continue letting Royce flail away in the majors? His plate appearances have been non-competitive for a long time now. 

Time to face "flail away" is who/what he is   Another development failure.

[h2oface]

Luke Keaschall is liking comments on the facebook site. But then, the one I saw shows he liked ALL the comments, concerning dead weight. So who knows. Ballsie, though.

[DJL44]

8 hours ago, dberthia said:

When you're beaten soundly by a "lowly" team, perhaps it is you that is lowly. Just sayin...

The As have better bats

[DJL44]

8 hours ago, h2oface said:

Luke Keaschall is liking comments on the facebook site. But then, the one I saw shows he liked ALL the comments, concerning dead weight. So who knows. Ballsie, though.

That’s almost certainly a software bot

[TwinsDr2021]

8 hours ago, Vanimal46 said:

Are we gonna continue letting Royce flail away in the majors? His plate appearances have been non-competitive for a long time now. 

Royce is 9/56 in August with a slash of .161/.250/.286/.536 is that not good?  That is weird, I keep hearing Clemens should be the first basemen next year and his slash for August is .180/.231/.295/.526. The Twins are loaded with mid to late 20 year old replacement level players. 

For comparison the Angel have their last 3 first round picks in the majors. Schanuel 23 draft, 23 years old third year in the majors (Career WAR 3.1), Zach Neto 22 draft, 24 years old, third year in the majors (career WAR 11), Christian Moore 24 draft, 22 years old first year in the majors (-.2 WAR)

The amazing thing is the Twins picked before the Angels in 22 and 23. 

Good Times for Twins fans! 😞

[Whitey333]

Typical Twins game.  Poor performances.  Get used to it i guess.

[mikelink45]

Sit Clemens, sit Lewis, bring up some young players to debut and try to earn a place on the roster.

If we are not going to sign Larnach - sit him and bring up Fedko or Jenkins or Gonzales.  Replace Julien

Try out some more young pitchers in the BP.  Ohl may be turning it around, but other than he and Sands who do we project keeping for 2026?  Replace any that are going to be replaced after the season.

Give this team some interest.  We just lost to a losing team with out Ace on the mound.  

[TwinsDr2021]

59 minutes ago, mikelink45 said:

Sit Clemens, sit Lewis, bring up some young players 

 

Don't you know you can't they need more seasoning and what if they lose a year of control. The Twins have to always be preparing for a few years down the road, how else do you continue to sell hope? </s>

[LambchoP]

1 hour ago, mikelink45 said:

Sit Clemens, sit Lewis, bring up some young players to debut and try to earn a place on the roster.

If we are not going to sign Larnach - sit him and bring up Fedko or Jenkins or Gonzales.  Replace Julien

Try out some more young pitchers in the BP.  Ohl may be turning it around, but other than he and Sands who do we project keeping for 2026?  Replace any that are going to be replaced after the season.

Give this team some interest.  We just lost to a losing team with out Ace on the mound.  

This exactly. Might as well try out Fedko and Outman everyday. Larnach and Wallner are what they are. It's redundant to have both on the roster. In the IF give guys like Sabato and Eeles an audition. Clemens and Lewis are not playing well at all . Call up some of the young SP and let them try out there stuff against big league hitters. Guys like Erasmo and Hatch aren't going to be here next year, why not give innings to arms that are actually part of our long term plans. At least auditioning some of the kids for next year would make watching the rest of the season halfway entertaining.

[DJL44]

Keaschall has no arm at all. I hope it’s due to the surgery and he can recover.

[stringer bell]

4 minutes ago, DJL44 said:

Keaschall has no arm at all. I hope it’s due to the surgery and he can recover.

I believe that is true. It really does limit him to the right side of the infield for now. 

[DJL44]

1 hour ago, mikelink45 said:

Sit Clemens, sit Lewis, bring up some young players to debut and try to earn a place on the roster.

There are no infielders in AAA who look like they deserve a promotion. Do you want to call up Jonah Bride or someone who is hitting worse than Jonah Bride?

[stringer bell]

More on Keaschall's arm--his throws from second on double plays have looked okay and accurate, certainly not the kind of velocity generated by (traded) middle infielders Castro and Correa. I couldn't find a percentile on his throwing, but I would guess it is pretty low. I would hope his arm rebounds next year to average or better.

[DJL44]

56 minutes ago, LambchoP said:

This exactly. Might as well try out Fedko and Outman everyday. Larnach and Wallner are what they are. 

Matt Wallner has a 927 OPS since the All-Star break, but you want to bench him for James Outman?!

Outman is what he is, and he strikes out 40% of the time.

[P Meyer]

This is exactly the type of season to let Royce try to work his way out of his funk. I don't understand why someone would not want the Twins to keep sending him out there. 

[TwinsDr2021]

49 minutes ago, DJL44 said:

There are no infielders in AAA who look like they deserve a promotion. Do you want to call up Jonah Bride or someone who is hitting worse than Jonah Bride?

Why does it have to be AAA?

It could be Culpepper and Fedko played 113.2 innings at first in AA or Sabato who is already 26 (Fedko turns 26 in a month if they don't give him or Sabato a shot soon, why ever bother?)

[DJL44]

4 minutes ago, TwinsDr2021 said:

Why does it have to be AAA?

It could be Culpepper and Fedko played 113.2 innings at first in AA or Sabato who is already 26 (Fedko turns 26 in a month if they don't give him or Sabato a shot soon, why ever bother?)

So you want to bench Brooks Lee and play Culpepper at SS? You want to have him skip AAA and start his service time clock because this team has become boring to watch in a lost season?

Sabato has been a mediocre AAA hitter. Fedko has only had a few plate appearances (against mostly bad pitching) in AAA. Eeles has also been mediocre at the plate. 

Pretty much everyone in the minor leagues is exactly where they need to be to keep them sufficiently challenged. Culpepper and Jenkins could move to AAA, but they promoted Gonzalez to AAA and he's not dominating despite seeing pitching that has been pretty lousy.

If you're bored and want to watch the minor leaguers play, it's easy to watch those games instead with your TwinsTV subscription.

[Parfigliano]

3 hours ago, Whitey333 said:

Typical Twins game.  Poor performances.  Get used to it i guess.

I have and I've accepted that there are many more coming.

[TwinsDr2021]

3 minutes ago, DJL44 said:

So you want to bench Brooks Lee and play Culpepper at SS? You want to have him skip AAA and start his service time clock because this team has become boring to watch in a lost season?

Sabato has been a mediocre AAA hitter. Fedko has only had a few plate appearances (against mostly bad pitching) in AAA. Eeles has also been mediocre at the plate. 

Pretty much everyone in the minor leagues is exactly where they need to be to keep them sufficiently challenged. Culpepper and Jenkins could move to AAA, but they promoted Gonzalez to AAA and he's not dominating despite seeing pitching that has been pretty lousy.

If you're bored and want to watch the minor leaguers play, it's easy to watch those games instead with your TwinsTV subscription.

Culpepper is 22 going on 23 (12/29) so no I am not worried about an extra year 6 or 7 years (whatever the heck it is) from now. I am not a fan of Fedko, Sabato or Eeles but I am less of a fan of Clemens, Fitzgerald, Gasper, Julien, Larnach, Martin and Outman. 

Larnach, Larnach, Keaschall (which meant Martin played 2nd), Larnach, Buxton (which mean Martin played CF), Larnach, Jeffers (which meant Gasper caught), Keaschall (which mean Fitzgerald and Martin played 2nd), Jeffers (which meant Gasper caught), McCusker. That is the last ten days of DH (3-7 record by the way) 

If you don't think we are already watching minor league players, well I don't what to say. I mean running out the likes of Clemens, Fitzgerald, Gasper, Julien, Martin, Outman  and McCuskers is by all accounts the definition of running out minor league players that have no real hope of being anything but a utility player (Martin) or a backup player. Trying out Feko, Sabato or Eeles doesn't change the dynamics of the situation. 

Bringing up Culpepper isn't a black and white issue of Lee going to the bench. The Twins would have Culpepper, Lee, Lewis, Keaschall to play the infield or DH, those 4 guys could play every day or just about every day. If you add a Fedko or Sabato to the mix at 1B, DH or OF in Fedko's case, still shouldn't take time from the 4 guys either. Sure Culpepper could be overwhelmed but it gives him great experience on what he needs to work on and would give the FO some fore site on roster building over the winter not something I seen this FO has ,so I won't keep my hopes up for it. 

I personally don't think Fedko, Sabato, Eeles are future starters in the majors but I don't think the guys I mentioned above are either but maybe, just maybe one of them is a later bloomer and has a real future, IMO those chances go down the longer they are in the minors at their ages. 

Personally I am sick and tired of hearing how great the Twins prospects are and just watching them get older and older while other teams are running out young prospects and having some of them work out and others not but I would rather have that then watching the likes of 25+ years old struggle and be told they are all just bloomers. 

[stringer bell]

What's best for the prospects should be the action that is taken, but also the Twins (and everybody in MLB) want to maximize control. If Culpepper and Jenkins don't have to be put on the 40-man roster, it really doesn't make sense to put them on that roster and also to start the service time clock at this time. 

There are only a couple of active roster spots to add on September 1st. On the pitching side, Pablo and SWR are reported to be added and Abel and Bradley could/should also get shots. Any other prospects/suspects probably won't get a shot, even though they have a bunch of disposable arms on the active roster. 

I definitely would like to see a healthy Lewis work through his struggles, especially since a lot of his metrics look pretty good. The same for Lee although the same metrics look poor for him. We have had Larnach for four years and he's probably what he is. Wallner has a a poor year, despite a decent OPS, so he's another guy I would like to see the season out. What to do with Clemens? He's slumped miserably, but his overall numbers are far better than expected. Can he be counted on for 2026? Do you give him five more weeks for the front office to make up their mind on him? Buxton and Jeffers should be playing and maybe Jeffers improves his arb contract or is auditioning for a trade. Mickey Gasper doesn't belong on a big league roster from his production this year, but currently he's the #2 catcher. Fitgerald is the only real backup shortstop. 

[RpR]

1 hour ago, P Meyer said:

This is exactly the type of season to let Royce try to work his way out of his funk. I don't understand why someone would not want the Twins to keep sending him out there. 

A lack of talent is not a funk.  He simply is not what so many at TD so badly wished for,  Time to move on or send him down to "work out" his supposed problems rather than let being out pitched in the majors destroying his ego..

[P Meyer]

58 minutes ago, RpR said:

A lack of talent is not a funk.  He simply is not what so many at TD so badly wished for,  Time to move on or send him down to "work out" his supposed problems rather than let being out pitched in the majors destroying his ego..

He has 782 career at bats. I guess I just don't see that as a large enough sample size to move on from a 1st round draft pick.

[Linus]

3 hours ago, stringer bell said:

More on Keaschall's arm--his throws from second on double plays have looked okay and accurate, certainly not the kind of velocity generated by (traded) middle infielders Castro and Correa. I couldn't find a percentile on his throwing, but I would guess it is pretty low. I would hope his arm rebounds next year to average or better.

He’s got a funky little move with his throwing hand prior to release sometimes - like his hand slides under the ball and the ball sails. I hope his arm is still recovering because if this is it we’ve got a problem. 

[stringer bell]

6 hours ago, P Meyer said:

He has 782 career at bats. I guess I just don't see that as a large enough sample size to move on from a 1st round draft pick.

Approximately 350 at-bats with superstar numbers and about 400 ABs among the worst in MLB. The reality has to be somewhere in between. Certainly the fan base has lowered their expectations in the last 13 months, but 80-90% of what he did in ‘22-‘24 through the All-Star break would be plenty good. The Twins are invested in Royce and there is still a pretty good chance that he’ll be good again.