Twins Video
The Twins suffered major blows with injuries early in the season, especially in the forms of Max Kepler, Royce Lewis, and Carlos Correa. The club started the season against some of the better teams in the league, and playing shorthanded left them sitting ducks. The injuries sucked the life out of the team: the bats died, and they fell into a spiral not only in the Central, but in the American League. Briefly, the Twins were in the cellar, alongside the Astros(?!), White Sox, and Athletics, looking at a dismal, long season.
After the first series against the Kansas City Royals, the Twins plunged to a sub-.200 batting average and roughly a .300 winning percentage over the next three weeks. Nothing they could do at the plate made any difference. Their timing was off, their approach was worse, and if guys finally got on base, no one would get them home. Offensively, the guys were a mess.
After being swept by Baltimore, with only a few days left in the month, the Twins headed home to play host to the Tigers and White Sox. They weren't able to get right against the upstart Detroiters, and things began to look truly grim. Leading up to the White Sox series, the team's batting average was .179, and the pitching was unable to conjure wins with no run support. Byron Buxton, Edouard Julien, Carlos Santana and Willi Castro looked like they were on a high-school team. The newest acquisitions, Manuel Margot and Santana, were utterly lost at the plate and the only one producing was Austin Martin. The questions of what was wrong were everywhere, but there was no answer. There was something wrong with the bats, and the only way to get better, was to use the White Sox to get their groove back and at least win the series.
The Twins did that and then some. They dug deep and plowed right through four games against the White Sox with their first sweep of the season, one featuring both blowouts and big comebacks. The White Sox have never been great. For over a decade and a half, they have been the team you beat when you need to bring your averages up, but only talented and resilient teams actually convert on the opportunity that series presented. The Twins proved themselves to be such a team.
It was on to Anaheim next. The Angels aren't a much better team than the White Sox, but they are more dangerous, so if Minnesota wanted to win this series, the bats would have to keep working.
The Angels, recently taken over by Ron Washington, are essentially in a rebuild mode, but they still have dangerous hitters. Luckily, their pitching was not nearly as intact as their hitting, and the defense was lacking. The Twins took every advantage they could to expose all the gaps, and ran up the scores. Kyle Farmer, the lone player who had seemed not to shake things loose against the White Sox, got in on the action, getting two runs and two RBIs to help the club fly past the Angels for a three-game sweep. That makes seven wins in a row, back-to-back sweeps, and a record on the right side of .500.
The injuries remain a headline for the Twins. Only the Rays (who just got swept on a visit to the South Side this weekend, leaving the White Sox with a bit of newfound confidence as the Twins come to town) have been notably more depleted by the injured list than have the Twins so far.
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Both Carlos Correa and Jhoan Durán are nearing returns, though, so by the end of this week, opponents will have to deal with a more representative version of the 2023 AL Central champs. In the meantime, they just need to keep Chicago down.
The White Sox are the least relevant team in the league, except in that they gave the Twins the capability to start their climb out of the hole they have been in since their home opener against the Guardians. The White Sox and the Angels were simply a means to an end, and now that the team is nearer full strength, they should be able to keep rolling. With a fully healthy roster, April will seem like just a bad dream; the Twins will have everything they need to be in a postseason hunt.
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