10 Key Moments That Defined the 2024 Minnesota Twins Season

There are a lot of moments that one could point back to as particularly important or pivotal in the course of the 2024 Minnesota Twins season. I'd love to hear some submissions from others in the comments regarding the memories that will stick out most as they think back to this one. 

These are my choices for the 10 events, games, and dates that most succinctly tell the story of this unique year in Twins history: the flat start, the thrilling rise, the devastating fall. 

March 28th: Royce Lewis suffers serious quad injury after two at-bats
After finishing the previous season with a bang in the playoffs, Lewis was glowing with hype out of spring training, finally entering a season healthy and ready to go. It lasted roughly an hour. 

The third baseman fueled his hype train by homering in his first at-bat and then singling in his second, but pulled up lame rounding second base in the third inning, forcing him to exit the game. He was later diagnosed with a significant quad strain, sucking immediate wind out of the team's sails.

Lewis would miss two months, and it's very possible the injury he suffered on Opening Day contributed to a subsequent adductor strain and physical burnout. In the short term, the Twins' offense sputtered in his absence on the way to digging a 7-13 hole to open the season.

April 22nd: Twins stomp White Sox 7-0 behind gem from Chris Paddack
On this date, the Twins officially turned things around and put their slow start behind them. Minnesota took a big early lead and never looked back, with Paddack striking out 10 over seven shutout innings. Edouard Julien had three hits including a home run as the No. 2 hitter. The series-opening victory kicked off a 12-game winning streak and set the tone for a summer of complete dominance over the lowly White Sox. 

This breakout game offered some legitimate reasons for optimism from a team that was about to win a ton of games over the next four months. There were also some misleading positive indicators (Julien, Paddack).

May 19th: Guardians walk off Jhoan Durán, complete sweep
While beating up on Chicago helped keep Minnesota in contention all year, the Twins' inability to match Cleveland's fortitude is what kept them from ever fully breaking through or overtaking the division. 

The Guardians simply owned the Twins all year long. Cleveland's players stepped up in the biggest spots and Minnesota's fell apart. It was a persistent dynamic that defined their rivalry this season, and you could pick any number of different games to exemplify it. This one is most deeply burrowed in my memory, encompassing a range of tendencies that ultimately spelled the Twins' downfall.

They wasted a good start: Paddack threw eight innings of two-run ball. Their offense repeatedly could not come up with a key hit: they went 0-for-8 with RISP. And with no margin for error, a Twins reliever gave up the game: Durán, who'd already been beaten by José Ramirez earlier in the series, took another loss on a three-run walk-off homer by Will Brennan. 

These were all ingredients in a gut-wrenching loss that fans lived through over and over again. The defeat secured a sweep for Cleveland, dropping the Twins to 0-5 against them in the wake of being swept by the Yankees at Target Field. The Twins were able to rebound from this early low point, at least temporarily, but in retrospect it was a dark omen of things to come later down the line.

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June 12th: Offense erupts for 17 runs in blowout win over Rockies
The Twins lineup was cooking in June, scoring 150 runs with a .350 wOBA that ranked third in baseball. Their absolute throttling of Colorado on this night at Target Field was the highlight of the month, and the season, for the offense. 

It was a game that really seemed to showcase what was possible for this Twins team, encouraging fans to dream big. Carlos Correa, Royce Lewis and Byron Buxton were all in the lineup. Correa went 5-for-5, while fellow soon-to-be All-Star Willi Castro had three hits and a home run. Lewis also homered--his fourth in eight games since returning from the quad injury. Pablo López got the win, embarking on a stretch that would see him go 10-2 with a 2.75 ERA over his next 17 starts.

July 13th: Carlos Correa scratched from lineup with bruised heel
The aforementioned 17-9 win over Colorado on June 12th served as a launching pad. The Twins took off and went 18-8 over the next month, closing within five games of Cleveland for the division lead by the time they headed to San Francisco for their final series before the All-Star break.

Correa had been an essential contributor over that stretch, slashing .373/.439/.647 with eight homers in 26 games to lock up an ASG nod and even generate some MVP buzz. On July 13th, shortly before their second game against the Giants, Correa was scratched from the lineup with what was ominously described as a heel contusion. 

Days later we learned that the shortstop was again dealing with plantar fasciitis, this time in his other foot. Initial optimism about the severity of the injury gradually evaporated as Correa struggled futilely for weeks on end to get back into playing shape. He didn't return until the middle of September, by which point his best efforts couldn't save a free-falling Twins team.

July 30th: Twins acquire only Trevor Richards at trade deadline
Every move the Twins made to acquire relief pitching during the last offseason flopped, with Jay Jackson, Josh Staumont and Steven Okert all being cut loose over the course of the season while Justin Topa didn't pitch a meaningful inning. The front office had an opportunity to atone somewhat for their misses and shore up the deteriorating bullpen at the deadline, but instead of making a real effort, their lone move was to trade for a replacement-level veteran in Richards from the Blue Jays.

Somehow, doing something proved worse than doing nothing. Richards gave up six runs on 11 walks and approximately 6,000 wild pitches in 13 innings, and was designated for assignment a month after the Twins acquired him. 

August 3rd: Joe Ryan suffers season-ending teres major strain
Ryan was on his way to the best season of his career when he took the mound at Wrigley for the rubber match of a three-game series against the Cubs. After getting through two innings, the right-hander signaled to trainers from the mound while facing his first batter in the third, and was quickly pulled from the game. It turned out to be a shoulder injury that would end his season.

Up to that point, Ryan had been the team's best starter. Losing him and their best hitter within a one-month span--along with the trade deadline inaction--was a three-pronged disaster sequence setting up the collapse to come. 

August 18th: Jorge Alcala gives up 4 ER in loss to Rangers
Despite being without several of their best players, the Twins admirably managed to hang on and rattle off victories through the first half of August. Following a series win over the Royals, the Twins had won their first three games in Texas. With a 4-0 lead in the seventh inning of the fourth, it looked like they were headed for a sweep, which would have pushed their record 18 games above .500 and pulled them within a game of first place.

In part because the team's lone trade deadline acquisition was proving unusable, Rocco Baldelli turned to an overworked Jorge Alcalá to protect a seemingly comfortable four-run lead. Catastrophe ensued. The Rangers went double-double-flyout-homer-strikeout-homer, and within seven batters they had the lead. 

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The Twins came back to tie it before losing in extras. Two days later they would blow a game in similar fashion, with Okert coming out of the bullpen and unraveling against the Padres. Thus, Minnesota's epic slide was officially underway.

August 25th: Edouard Julien's brutal error contributes to another meltdown loss
This was but one painful loss out of many down the stretch. I remember it very distinctly, though, because it was the moment I personally came to a grim realization: They're actually gonna screw this up, aren't they? 

Even after losing this game, the Twins were still statistically highly likely to reach the playoffs, but it was impossible to ignore the way this team was falling apart at the seams, coughing up close games in the same fashion over and over again due to sleepy hitting and sloppy execution while their best players remained sidelined indefinitely. In this one the Twins carried a 2-1 lead into the ninth before Julien's errant throw to second on a double-play ball turned a win into a loss almost single-handedly. 

September 22nd: Cole Irvin gives up back-breaking homer in loss to Red Sox
Following the above loss, the Twins dropped four of their last five games in August before flipping the calendar to September, where things would truly go off the rails as Minnesota went 9-18 to spiral out of playoff position. You could point to any number of games as the death blow, including the 13-inning debacle against Miami that effectively knocked them out of the race, or the following lifeless loss against the Orioles that made it official.

But for me, it was the nightcap of Minnesota's doubleheader against the Red Sox that all but marked the end of their season, serving as the culmination of so many recurring mistakes and shortcomings that plagued these Twins. Once again the offense couldn't find a pulse, going scoreless through four innings against Kutter Crawford. They finally scratched a couple runs across in the fifth, and but once again couldn't sustain an ounce of momentum. Again Baldelli pulled his starter at the first sign of trouble, and again the decision backfired, as Irvin replaced Zebby Matthews in the fifth and quickly gave up three runs to surrender the lead.

Once again, the Twins shriveled up at the first sign of adversity, giving up six runs in the next inning to turn a close game into a blowout loss. The fact that this season sunk with Cole Irvin on the mound is almost poetic.

Those are my picks for the most unforgettable moments in a season that will be memorable for all the wrong reasons. Let's hear yours!