Twins 6, Astros 3: A Little Rain is No Pain (But a Sprain, Alas! A Sprain...)

Box Score:
Starting Pitcher: Kendry Rojas: 4 IP, 2 H, 0 R, 1 BB, 3 SO - 46 Pitches, 31 Strikes, 10 Whiffs = Average 4-Seam Velo: 96.0 MPH
Home Runs: Josh Bell 2 (5)
Top 3 WPA: Bell (0.30), Rojas (0.22), Eric Orze (0.09)
Win Probability Chart (Via BaseballSavant):

You Win Some...
The Twins got some really encouraging performances Monday night. Josh Bell hadn't homered in over a month and was doing a frighteningly good impression of a player who's completely cooked. He entered the game batting .176/.176/.235 for the month of May, with 20 strikeouts and zero walks in 51 plate appearances. Bell has always been a streaky hitter, but that level of lostness is uncharted territory. Were it not for the concurrent death spirals of the careers of Matt Wallner and Royce Lewis, Bell might have been a focus of more conversation in recent days as someone who could lose their roster spot, or at least be placed on the IL with some semi-phantom injury.

Almost any time such a thing is happening, though, there is at least some reason for it behind the scenes—and, therefore, more hope than you might guess, at a glance. In Bell's case, the mitigating circumstance is that he's been sick for much of this month, dealing with fluid loss and sapped strength. Players play through illness all the time, and it can't be used as an excuse for poor performance, so they'll rarely even admit to the issue. It does affect performance, though, just as it affects anyone else when they try to slog through a workday with a head cold or a stomach virus.

Beginning to feel like himself again, perhaps, Bell broke out of his funk in a huge way Monday night. He hit two homers that were relatively low liners, but on which there was still no doubt of the outcome off the bat, and he lashed what turned out to be an important RBI single in the bottom of the sixth. A better Bell would go a long way to getting this Twins offense into the consistent groove they've sought all year.

Meanwhile, Kendry Rojas put on an equally impressive show. His command was better than it's been in any of his other big-league outings, as he hammered away on the glove side of the plate with his four-seamer and showed the ability to drop in his changeup for strikes. He pitched just four innings, but only needed 46 pitches to do it and induced 10 whiffs by the visiting Astros. Though he'll have to find more consistency with his slider to replicate this in the future, Monday was a big step in his development as a potential starter.

... You Lose Some...
It was inevitable, and is inarguably what's best for the team, but that probably won't give Simeon Woods Richardson a great deal of solace. He's (semi-)officially out of the starting rotation now, after the team plainly planned a piggyback of Rojas and Woods Richardson Monday night. Rojas left after four frames so that Woods Richardson could make a multi-inning appearance in relief, and it was nice that he was protecting a lead when he came in—but that's the kind of thing you do to emphasize how important a guy's new role is, when both you and he know his new role is a smaller and less important one.

Woods Richardson only got one inning in, as it happened, because of the weather's disruptive influence on the game. He stayed on the plate, though he didn't have command of his curveball. Clearly pacing himself for an almost-normal outing, he didn't tap into the extra velocity the team surely hopes he might access as a reliever, but it was a first appearance in what's likely to be his new standard gig. It went fairly well, and Woods Richardson took the right attitude.

Far, far more worrisome for the Twins than Woods Richardson's loss of a job is the danger that they might have lost their best player for a little while, on about as innocuous a play as you can imagine.

After fouling off a pitch on which his bat broke, Ryan Jeffers initially stayed in the game—but two pitches later, he called for the trainer and departed. After the game, the team said Jeffers was being evaluated for a left wrist sprain. Though catchers play through dings that bad and worse, this figures to sideline Jeffers for at least a short time. If it's any more than a very mild sprain, it could (and probably should) land him on the injured list; no one's wrist ever got better by catching 120 pitches a day averaging 90 miles per hour.

The truth, though, is that losing Jeffers for any meaningful stretch would mark the end of even half-hearted hopes of the Twins competing this season. He has a team-best .949 OPS. He's garnered the respect and trust of the pitching staff, thin though that group might be. Without Jeffers, even a hot streak from Bell wouldn't make this a very robust offense, and (despite Victor Caratini's ABS wizardry) they'll probably lose a bit on the run prevention side, too. It's breath-holding time—although, come to think of it, you were probably already holding your breath while you waited to see how long Byron Buxton will be sidelined by his hip flexor problem. Ok, let it out. Catch a few deep gulps of air. Now: hold your breath again.

... And Some Days it Rains.
The game was delayed by nearly two hours right at its midpoint, with the Twins up 3-0 in the bottom of the fifth. You can make a pretty strong case that it just should have been banged, and the Twins declared the winners; it was official once they got through the top of the fifth. In some future version of the league, mid-game rain delays of more than 90 minutes will probably be banned, and we'll all be better for it. Baseball is an outdoor game, which is a wonderful thing. We're meant to live in contact and conversation with nature, and not to conquer it outright. Sometimes, it's ok to let Mother Nature win. This is a level of philosophizing that would make both Rob Manfred and whoever's running the MLB Players Association these days puke, but it's also pragmatic. Neither fans nor players benefit from long rain delays, and despite your wisecracks to the contrary, they're not moneymakers for teams, either.

What's Next
The Astros and Twins continue their three-game set Tuesday night, under clearer skies—but it's going to get chilly, with temperatures dipping into the 40s by the late innings. Lance McCullers Jr. (2-3, 6.86) gets the ball for the visitors, while Zebby Matthews (1-0, 0.00) makes his second start of the year for the Twins. First pitch is at 6:40 PM CT.

Bullpen Usage Chart