Twins 4, Rangers 1: The Piranhas Strike Again

[Eric Blonigen]

Image courtesy of © Raymond Carlin III-Imagn Images

A baseball game broke out as the Twins headed to Arlington for the penultimate series of the year. With just six games remaining, the Twins sought to gain any remaining perspective they can on the late-season callups, potential future bullpen stalwarts, and the Byron Buxton 30-25 watch continued. The Rangers attempted to stop a seven-game skid. The game itself? It had some speed, some shoddy defense, and some good pitching. In fact, it was a downright fun one. 

Box Score
Zebby Matthews: 7 IP, 4 H, 1 ER, 0 BB, 6 K
Home Runs: None by the Twins
Top 3 WPA: Matthews (.283), Christian Vázquez (.150), Kody Clemens (.125)
Win Probability Chart (via FanGraphs)

 

The Pitchers
Zebby Matthews took the mound for the Twins, desperate to end the season on a high note. He has struggled with consistency throughout the year, reinforcing that he has good stuff, but that it doesn’t get good results. He has struggled mightily with control, leaving too many pitches over the fat part of the plate. This has made him prone to allowing big innings, and generally, he has had a tough time getting the third out of innings. He could be a candidate for a bullpen role next season, unless he can show the ability to locate the way he needs to. How did he do tonight? Well, he gave up a leadoff homer to Joc Pederson, but after that, he settled in to pitch a great game. Matthews allowed just three hits the rest of the night.

The Rangers sent lefty Patrick Corbin to the mound. He has had a bit of a late-career resurgence, as 2025 has been mediocre—as opposed to downright bad. He sported an ERA north of 5.00 in each of the past four seasons, but brought a 4.33 mark into tonight’s game. He gets good results with his fastball, gets decent chase and some swinging strikes, but his secondary offerings don’t get consistent results. Surprisingly for this Twins team, they knocked him out in the fourth inning after throwing just 65 pitches. He allowed six baserunners and gave up two runs in that stretch.

Themes of the Game

Return of the Catchers
Today’s game featured the return of both starting catchers from the injured list. Christian Vázquez missed 43 games, and has been out since August 5 with an elbow infection that traveled to his shoulder and became a serious threat to his overall health. Ryan Jeffers had been out with a concussion suffered on September 4th. It’s great to see them both healthy and back in action. The duo celebrated their return by immediately impacting the game.

Scrappy Play Continues
In the second, Luke Keaschall stole second. In the third, Kody Clemens hit a hustle double, Byron Buxton beat out what would have been a grounder into a double play, then advanced two bases on a deflected liner to short hit by Austin Martin, who immediately stole second. In the same inning, Keaschall attempted a bunt twice. James Outman, in the sixth inning, scored from second on a bloop single that barely left the infield. Vázquez stole his first base of the season in the eighth, and let me tell you, he’s not a fast runner. Not to be outdone, Jeffers attempted his first steal of the year in the ninth, but was thrown out on a close play.

Also in the ninth, Ryan Fitzgerald stole third, becoming the 17th different player stealing a base for the Twins this season. Per Cory Provus, that's one off the team record. Despite not running much until after the deadline, the Twins have now stolen their most bases since 2012. Since the deadline, the Twins have stolen the second most in baseball behind the Yankees.

Struggles With Runners in Scoring Position
In the sixth inning, the Twins loaded the bases with nobody out. The run expectancy in that situation is 2.7 runs. So what happened? Well, Buxton struck out, Austin Martin grounded out (Brooks Lee scored on the play), and Jeffers grounded out as well, with a solitary run crossing the plate in the inning. This result has been emblematic of the Twins’ struggles with the bases loaded this season. The problem goes a bit deeper, in fact, as they are hitting just .242 with runners in scoring position, 25th in baseball. In today’s game, they were just 3-19 in this situation. Luckily, they did string enough together to get a few runs on the board.

Game Notes

• Somehow, a 4-1 game went over three hours. That's a pretty rare event in the pitch clock era -- especially when the Yankees involved.
• The Twins played spoiler for the Rangers, officially eliminating them from postseason contention
• Keaschall left the game with a left thumb injury, suffered when sliding hard head-first into second on the stolen base. He will receive an X-ray after the game. Hopefully it’s nothing serious, but it wouldn't be a surprise if this marks the end of his impressive rookie campaign.
• Vázquez also briefly looked injured, after getting hit by a pitch, but he shook it off and remained in the game.

What’s Next?
The Twins play the middle game of their set against the Rangers, and it should be a fun matchup. Taj Bradley faces off against Jacob deGrom. First pitch is at 7:05 PM CT. 

Postgame Interviews

Bullpen Usage

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[Parfigliano]

I really hope TCs discovery of the stolen base carries over into next years offensive plan.

[knothole61]

That was fun: Zebby gives up a leadoff HR and that was all, and we gave a merciful dagger to the Rangers' season. Let's finish with 7 wins in a row and then watch other teams play some exciting playoff baseball! 

How about those Guardians!

[stringer bell]

I didn't see today's game. Was Zebby's stuff that much better? He's had quite a few nice starts, but he's also been used for batting practice a few times.

It would be nice to win a series this week. It hasn't happened much of late. Cleveland has made a monumental comeback. Again in the second half of the season, the whole is greater than the sum of the parts. Detroit was everybody's best story, but it certainly seems that celebrating them was premature.                                                                         

[Doctor Gast]

I applaud the Twins for opening up the running game. For letting the runners get the feel (instinct) for when to run & when not to & not depend on base coaches. Distracting pitchers & fielders so they make mistakes rather than allowing them to freely get into their groove. Now I didn't watch the game, & I couldn't find in the highlights; but even when Martin was gunned down at home, IMO, he distracted the fielder from turning a DP, thus ending the inning & rally.

I also applaud Zebby with his command & the BP.  Funderburk (LHP) has quietly been dependable (I had been ready to give up on him). 

Defense, along with baserunning, pitching & clutch hitting (fundamentals), is the key to success next season. Defense needs to improve, where we need to put the best defensive players in the key positions.

[BrokenCompass]

Nice. 

[Doctor Wu]

Despite not running much until after the deadline, the Twins have now stolen their most bases since 2012. Since the deadline, the Twins have stolen the second most in baseball behind the Yankees.

Some encouraging stats there. Now we need to find a way to get MORE runners on base and MORE runs to score. I love seeing the Twins being more aggressive on the bases ... but don't let Watkins allow too many of the slow-footed guys to round third and try to score when they are sitting ducks. 

[Doctor Gast]

10 hours ago, stringer bell said:

I didn't see today's game. Was Zebby's stuff that much better? He's had quite a few nice starts, but he's also been used for batting practice a few times.

It would be nice to win a series this week. It hasn't happened much of late. Cleveland has made a monumental comeback. Again in the second half of the season, the whole is greater than the sum of the parts. Detroit was everybody's best story, but it certainly seems that celebrating them was premature.                                                                         

It has been said that CLE is the luckiest team. They are the luckiest because they don't prioritize the stats that dominate most teams. But I contest that CLE isn't lucky; they are smart. They prioritize the fundamentals & strengths of each one of their players (not trying to fit every player into their mold). They have stuck with their own players & developed them & they have kept rewarding CLE, every time the league has written them off. (I wish Falvey had adopted this philosophy). I am cheering them on. I'm cheering DET & CLE, each represents the Central division in the playoffs.

BOS has let me down by not beating the Yanks. So I hope TOR (Varland, Popkins, & Berrios) cleans their clock so they can hold off NYY & DET beat them & knock them out of the playoffs.

[Riverbrian]

Credit where credit is due, Vazquez had a really nice game in his return from what was probably a scary injury. 

While I applaud his efforts to get back... I Can't help wonder why he is back.

Since he won't be back. 

Oh Well... Pereda had his demotion coming since he only managed 32 PA's of .870 OPS. 

If you want to stay in the majors... you gotta have more PA's than that. 

He needs to go to St. Paul and not come back until he gets more MLB PA's. 

 

 

 

 

 

[FlyingFinn]

5 hours ago, stringer bell said:

I didn't see today's game. Was Zebby's stuff that much better? He's had quite a few nice starts, but he's also been used for batting practice a few times.

The stuff wasn't much better but the location was. Other factors - the hitters weren't as good, the umpire seemed to have a slightly wide zone to the outside, line drives were caught by Clemens, Vazquez catching, and maybe the batters didn't know what pitch was coming. Everything that went wrong last game went right this game IMO.

[thelanges5]

Bizarro Zebby stayed in TC, good Zebby was in TX. He continues to tease us with what he can do. Hopefully he works on his command in the off season. The stolen bases have been a nice addition. 
Go Twins!

[Whitey333]

Nice game by Matthew's.  You never know ow which Matthew's you are getting.  Very inconsistent.  Twins played nice.  The normal one or two wins a week.

[mikelink45]

This is like soccer with a division for the lesser talented teams - with the premier league and then a number of levels in what they call a pyramid.  Lousy teams go down, better teams go up.  The Twins are now comfortably in their league with Texas.  Then there is CO, A's, White Sox, Braves, Pirates and we have the next league down.  I have become indifferent to wins and losses.  Mostly I am glad Zebby had a good game and will always be puzzled why Vasquez is up for his farewell tour. 

[jmlease1]

A very good start by Zebby. You had to wonder when he gave up the lead off dinger, but he settled down nicely and threw a very nice game. Sure, he got a little lucky on several hard hit balls being collected by the infield (nice job by Clemens in particular) but he also did a good job throwing strikes and missing some bats.

Hope it's nothing serious with Keaschall. It'd be very Twins-ian for a one of the few players to have a good season and a guy giving hope for the future getting hurt at the close. (also, very poor bunt. he's got to push that past the pitcher to give Martin a chance to score.)

Texas is having a collapse reminiscent of the Twins from 2024. They had a shot at a playoff berth and bottled it.

[wavedog]

Nice win for Minnesota last night and seeing a starting pitcher go 7 innings!  Perhaps illustrating how the Twins are viewed and losing to this team Bruce Bochy ripped into his team last night after the loss as this is the headline on the Dallas Morning news this morning  "Bruce Bochy calls out Rangers Intensity, focus as Texas ugly finish to 2025 continues" .  

[jorgenswest]

Maybe they made the call on Pereda. If they made the call and will remove him from the 40 at the end of the season I am OK with that. I would rather have Vazquez catching our young pitchers in their last start. If he is still in their plans he should be playing this week.

[rdehring]

Love how the Twins have been running and putting pressure on the other team since the deadline.  My question is, why didn't Rocco have his team doing this for his first 6+ years?  And more important, will it continue in 2026?

[DJL44]

2 hours ago, Doctor Wu said:

Despite not running much until after the deadline, the Twins have now stolen their most bases since 2012. Since the deadline, the Twins have stolen the second most in baseball behind the Yankees.

Some encouraging stats there. Now we need to find a way to get MORE runners on base and MORE runs to score. I love seeing the Twins being more aggressive on the bases ... but don't let Watkins allow too many of the slow-footed guys to round third and try to score when they are sitting ducks. 

It hasn't helped their win-loss record at all. Their overall baserunning value is -8. Buxton is +6, Keaschall +2, Lewis +1 and the rest of the team has cost them 17 runs on the bases.

[terrydactyls]

Chicago has wrapped up the pre-lottery first pick and several can no longer catch the Twins or Pirates.  So my list has gotten much shorter.

P	Team	W	L	PCT	GB
2	Minnesota Twins	68	89	0.433	0.0
1	Pittsburgh Pirates	68	89	0.433	0.0
3	Los Angeles Angels	70	87	0.446	2.0

. 

 

[DJL44]

6 minutes ago, jorgenswest said:

I would rather have Vazquez catching our young pitchers in their last start. If he is still in their plans he should be playing this week.

If he is still in their plans then they're not trying to win next year either.

[jorgenswest]

1 minute ago, DJL44 said:

If he is still in their plans then they're not trying to win next year either.

I don’t know if the second catcher is going to be the tipping point between winning and losing. They should be looking for an inexpensive second catcher. He might not be it. I honestly don’t know. At times he looked like a major league catcher like the Woods Richardson start. I think it was his next start where he struggled to block pitches, throw out runners and failed to make a play at the plate. 

[DJL44]

6 minutes ago, jorgenswest said:

I don’t know if the second catcher is going to be the tipping point between winning and losing. They should be looking for an inexpensive second catcher. He might not be it. I honestly don’t know. At times he looked like a major league catcher like the Woods Richardson start. I think it was his next start where he struggled to block pitches, throw out runners and failed to make a play at the plate. 

Vazquez OPS+ by season

2023 64

2024 61

2025 45

2026 Will it be higher or lower than his age (35)?

[DJL44]

Kody Clemens made some plays at 2B. He might be their best fielder at that position.

Brooks Lee clanked another grounder.

[terrydactyls]

14 minutes ago, DJL44 said:

It hasn't helped their win-loss record at all. Their overall baserunning value is -8. Buxton is +6, Keaschall +2, Lewis +1 and the rest of the team has cost them 17 runs on the bases.

Overall baserunning value?  Are you kidding me?  Another of the myriad of nonsensical metrics.  Don't you think that having to field an AAA team after the deadline might have more to do with their record than the base stealing?

[mickster]

2 hours ago, Riverbrian said:

Credit where credit is due, Vazquez had a really nice game in his return from what was probably a scary injury. 

While I applaud his efforts to get back... I Can't help wonder why he is back.

Since he won't be back. 

Oh Well... Pereda had his demotion coming since he only managed 32 PA's of .870 OPS. 

If you want to stay in the majors... you gotta have more PA's than that. 

He needs to go to St. Paul and not come back until he gets more MLB PA's. 

 

 

 

 

 

I would not count out Vazquez from returning.   Won't get much interest in FA and I think would be a solid backup, just have to cut down on his playing time.

[tarheeltwinsfan]

8 hours ago, stringer bell said:

I didn't see today's game. Was Zebby's stuff that much better? He's had quite a few nice starts, but he's also been used for batting practice a few times.

It would be nice to win a series this week. It hasn't happened much of late. Cleveland has made a monumental comeback. Again in the second half of the season, the whole is greater than the sum of the parts. Detroit was everybody's best story, but it certainly seems that celebrating them was premature.                                                                         

The fat lady is not through singing yet. Go Twins!

[thelanges5]

Jeffers as primary catcher and sign Vázquez to back up for $2.5 mil. Split them 70/30

[jmlease1]

2 minutes ago, rdehring said:

Love how the Twins have been running and putting pressure on the other team since the deadline.  My question is, why didn't Rocco have his team doing this for his first 6+ years?  And more important, will it continue in 2026?

Because they were much slower and had a lot of guys dealing with injuries? Buxton wasn't healthy, Lewis wasn't healthy, Correa is slow (and had foot issues), Larnach is slow and had turf toe, France was slow, Lee is slow, Jeffers is slow, etc. They've added more speed to the lineup. But it's also easier to be aggressive when it doesn't matter if you lose.

Why would you run with the Bomba Squad except with the best of the best? It was not a fast team: Garver, Cron, Schoop, Sano, Cruz, Arraez, Castro...this is not a good base-stealing bunch. Rosario could have maybe run more, but Kepler & Polanco weren't good at it and ran into outs.

Look back at last year's squad: who were you excited about trying to swipe bases on that crew outside of Castro (who was quite bad at it in 2024) and Buxton (who we were constantly fearing would go down injured again)? Carlos Santana was opportunistic, but not fast; Jeffers, Miranda, Kepler, Farmer, Vazquez, Kirilloff, Correa, Larnach...not a lot of speed there.

Now you've got healthy Buxton & Lewis, Keaschall, and Martin getting consistent time and freedom to run. They're still not sending Brooks Lee, because he's slow.

[DJL44]

10 minutes ago, terrydactyls said:

Overall baserunning value?  Are you kidding me?  Another of the myriad of nonsensical metrics.  Don't you think that having to field an AAA team after the deadline might have more to do with their record than the base stealing?

It's actually really easy to measure the positive value of an extra base versus the negative value of an additional out. This isn't a grey area.

[jmlease1]

6 minutes ago, terrydactyls said:

Overall baserunning value?  Are you kidding me?  Another of the myriad of nonsensical metrics.  Don't you think that having to field an AAA team after the deadline might have more to do with their record than the base stealing?

It's not nonsensical: Twins still don't have a lot of team speed. They guys who are pretty good or better at running have success: Buxton, Keaschall, Lewis. Martin has made some big mistakes and that matters; he's gotten better and with better coaching out there (Seriously, how long are they going to cover for Tommy Watkins?) he should do better, and can at least rack up the steals, but look at guys like Larnach, Wallner, Julien, and Jeffers and tell me this is a team that's good at running?

Part of the reason they're being more aggressive is it doesn't matter if they get burned, and the offense is so desperate for runs that trying to play for a crooked number is less likely than ever to happen. So they're trading outs to get a single run to try and get something on the board a lot more.

How'd that squeeze play work out last night? That's how you lose baserunning value, trading a runner on 3rd for a runner on 2nd in exchange for an out...