Week in Review: Cold Spell

Weekly Snapshot: Mon, 4/17 through Sun, 4/23
***
Record Last Week: 2-4 (Overall: 12-10)
Run Differential Last Week: -6 (Overall: +12)
Standing: 1st Place in AL Central (1.0 GA)

Last Week's Game Results:

Game 17 | BOS 5, MIN 4: Odd Game Ends in 10th-Inning Walk-Off Loss
Game 18 | MIN 10, BOS 4: Bats Lead the Way in Lopsided Victory
Game 19 | BOS 11, MIN 5: Maeda Leaves Early, Bullpen Melts Down
Game 20 | WAS 3, MIN 2: Twins Blow Late Lead as Offense Scuffles
Game 21 | WAS 10, MIN 4: Death by a Thousand Paper Cuts
Game 22 | MIN 3, WAS 1: Twins Salvage a Win Against Lowly Nats

NEWS & NOTES

Jorge Polanco is back. The second baseman was slowed in spring training by lingering knee soreness, and spent much of April rehabbing in the minors, but was pronounced ready last week and rejoined the team at Target Field for their weekend series against the Nationals. Edouard Julien was optioned back to Triple-A to make room.

The scuffling Twins offense could sure use a boost of any kind, so they'll happily take back Polanco, who batted fifth in all three games against Washington while going 5-for-13 with a homer and a double.

There was understandably a lot of skepticism surrounding the second baseman as last year's knee tendinitis carried over to this spring, with no clear explanation or fix. But in his first series back Polanco looked healthy and locked in. He's the first in a string of reinforcements capable of making a pivotal impact for the Twins this season.

In other roster moves:

• Joey Gallo was activated from the injured list on Wednesday, with Kyle Garlick heading back to Triple-A.
• Jorge Alcala was optioned following a rough day for the bullpen Thursday, with Simeon Woods Richardson called up to fill in as a long reliever. SWR tossed 4 ⅔ innings Saturday, and was then swapped out for Bailey Ober to make a spot start on Sunday.

HIGHLIGHTS

Upon being activated from IL, Gallo wasted no time in making his presence felt, homering and driving in three runs against Boston in his first game back on Wednesday. He launched another bomb at Target Field on Friday, pushing his season total to five through 10 games played. Last year Gallo's fifth home run came on May 15th, in his 31st game.

Gallo was one of the few standouts in a lineup whose success was mostly concentrated in a single game – Wednesday's 10-run outburst that also included three hits for Julien and four RBIs for Trevor Larnach. Otherwise, most of the high points once again came from the pitching staff.

This included Joe Ryan picking up his fourth win in four tries (naturally, he pitched on Wednesday, playing to his penchant for ample run support), and Brent Headrick made his MLB debut the same day, tossing three innings in long relief to pick up a quirky save. Sonny Gray fired five innings of one-run ball against Boston, while Tyler Mahle delivered his best start of the year so far on Friday: 6 ⅓ innings, three hits, no walks, one run.

Making his long-awaited first start of the season as a Twin on Sunday, Ober was able to overcome some control issues in the cold weather, holding the Nats to one run on three hits in 5 ⅔ to substantiate the "loaded depth" narrative attached to this stellar Twins rotation.

LOWLIGHTS

Sloppy, ugly baseball was the story of the week for the Twins. Slumps happen and sometimes the breaks don't go your way – they experienced plenty of that – but there's no excuse for the kind of listless and scatterbrained play we repeatedly saw from the team during these two very winnable series.

Where to begin? There were plenty of micro-moments of malaise throughout the week, with fielders failing to secure balls in their gloves, uncorking errant throws, and committing mental gaffes. The miscues that stand out most included: 

• Max Kepler overrunning third base and getting nabbed for the final out on Thursday.
• Michael A. Taylor lazily lobbing in a ball he dropped in the outfield on Saturday, allowing the runner an extra base.
• Christian Vazquez putting together a big ol' mess of a game behind the plate on Monday in Boston.

These lapses are especially tough because they betray the exact strengths these players are supposed to bring to the table: Kepler's speed and baserunning instincts, Taylor's CF specialization, Vazquez's reputed receiving chops.

Meanwhile, the offense can't find any sense of rhythm because too many bat-first players aren't showing up. It's nice that guys like Gallo and Polanco can come off the IL and provide a jolt, but the Twins aren't getting nearly enough from key mainstays they're depending on to anchor the lineup.

José Miranda is a prime perpetrator, as he just can't seem to get going at the plate. After collecting seven singles in 26 at-bats last week, Miranda is now slashing .244/.301/.267 with more than twice as many GIDPs (5) than XBHs (2) on the season. He still has yet to hit a home run after blasting five during spring training.

The Twins are wise to stick it out with Miranda – we all saw what happened after he shook off a slow start in his rookie season – but the trouble is that his defensive deficiencies become much more glaring when he's not hitting at all. At the moment, he doesn't have much serious competition for playing time at third base, much less anyone threatening to bump him off the roster, but that could change as Kyle Farmer works his way back and Brooks Lee continues to impress in the minors.

Miranda is among a sea of under-performers on the offense. Nick Gordon went 1-for-8 and has a .268 OPS on the season. Larnach's bat has gone cold after the strong start; he's slashing just .160/.259/.260 in 15 games since the Miami series, with huge issues against offspeed stuff throttling his production. 

Carlos Correa seemingly broke out from his early-season funk in New York, when he homered in both of the first two games against the Yankees, but since then he's 5-for-30 (.167) with zero extra-base hits in eight games, during which the team has gone 2-6.

A whole lineup full of talented hitters who aren't clicking is a vexing problem. The Twins have little choice but to wait it out for the most part, which is frustrating as winnable games slip away and the team fails to take advantage of an early opportunity to separate atop the division. Cleveland has lost five of its last seven and the Twins have gained not one game in the standings.

Even as the rotation continues to excel, the starting pitchers aren't going to always be perfect (as demonstrated by Pablo López in a snakebit five-run outing on Saturday) nor is the bullpen. The offense has GOT to do more early scoring to build leads instead of forcing the pitchers to constantly work with no margin for error. 

TRENDING STORYLINE

Alex Kirilloff played his fourth rehab game at Triple-A on Sunday and launched his first home run there, going oppo with a 103 MPH drive over the left field fence at CHS Field. Later in the game, he added a second, pulling a three-run blast over the wall in right-center. AK is batting .462 with a 1.589 OPS for the Saints.

From all appearances, he looks ready, and the Twins could use his bat as desperately as Polanco's, if not more. However, they seem inclined to take it slow, and it sounds like the team might keep him in the minors beyond his 20-day rehab window, which closes in one week. As Aaron Gleeman writes in The Athletic: 

"Multiple team sources indicated Friday that the Twins may decide to option Kirilloff to St. Paul once his rehab assignment is over, an approach they also took in the middle of last season. To do so again would mean the 25-year-old former top prospect has been deemed healthy, but questions remain about his readiness to step back into a big-league lineup after so much missed time."

They did indeed do this last year. I'm not sure we can say in retrospect it was a very good call? Kirilloff spent a month absolutely decimating Triple-A pitchers – he slashed .385/.477/.725 with 10 homers in 28 games before getting recalled. As it turns out, he might have wasted a lot of his best swings down there, because the wrist problem quickly resurfaced in the majors and he was shut down after several unproductive weeks.

Tending toward a more conservative approach with Kirilloff is understandable, but given the way he's swinging in St. Paul, it feels like overkill? We'll see if the explosive performance on Sunday affects the front office's thinking. 

Could be that what's driving their noncommittal attitude is the current major-league roster situation. With Garlick and Julien already optioned, there are no obvious candidates to swap out for Kirilloff, save for Willi Castro who has been a pretty useful piece on the bench. 

It's tough to manage a roster loaded with similar player types – a challenge the Twins walked into when they signed Gallo and kept Max Kepler to round out a lefty-swinging corner mix including Gordon, Larnach, and Kirilloff. Now, the Twins are reaching a point where they're gonna need to figure it out.

Larnach and Gordon are really going to start feeling the pressure here if they can't get their bats going against righties.

LOOKING AHEAD

The Yankees are coming to town. The Twins will face Jhony Brito, who they clobbered in their first meeting, and Domingo Germán, who controversially dominated them with a resin-coated hand at Yankee Stadium. Should be interesting. The following four-game series against the Royals represents a fine opportunity to fatten up, but as we've seen, taking advantage cannot be taken for granted with the Twins.

MONDAY, 4/24: YANKEES @ TWINS – RHP Jhony Brito v. RHP Sonny Gray
TUESDAY, 4/25: YANKEES @ TWINS – LHP Nestor Cortes v. RHP Joe Ryan
WEDNESDAY, 4/26: YANKEES @ TWINS – RHP Domingo Germán v. RHP Kenta Maeda
THURSDAY, 4/27: ROYALS @ TWINS – RHP Zack Greinke v. RHP Tyler Mahle
FRIDAY, 4/28: ROYALS @ TWINS – RHP Jordan Lyles v. RHP Pablo López
SATURDAY, 4/29: ROYALS @ TWINS – RHP Brad Keller v. RHP Sonny Gray
SUNDAY, 4/30: ROYALS @ TWINS – RHP Brady Singer v. RHP Joe Ryan