Week in Review: Signs of Progress

The Weekly Nutshell:
The Minnesota Twins carried their lackluster play from the previous week forward, dropping the first two games against Seattle and extending their losing streak to five. But a big performance from Joe Ryan on Wednesday sparked a refreshing run of excellence from the pitching staff and the Twins resoundingly stopped their slide with three straight victories. They lost on Saturday and Sunday to finish 3-4.

Hardly a banner week, but this was among the tougher ones on the schedule and the Twins came into it playing about as badly as a team can be. Managing to come away with a split against the Mariners and a win in Detroit feels like a bit of a win, and certainly a sign of a progress from a Twins team that very badly needed to start showing some. Now let's keep 'em coming.

Weekly Snapshot: Mon, 6/23 through Sun, 6/29
***
Record Last Week: 3-4 (Overall: 40-44)
Run Differential Last Week: -4 (Overall: -14)
Standing: 3rd Place in AL Central (12.5 GB) 

Last Week's Game Results:

Game 78 | SEA 11, MIN 2: Ober Gets Blasted Yet Again as Slide Persists

• Ober: 7 IP, 7 ER, 3 HR

Game 79 | SEA 6, MIN 5: Twins Fight Back from Deficit, Fall Short in Ninth

• Duran: 1 IP, 1 ER, 1 BB, 2 HBP, L

Game 80 | MIN 2, SEA 0: Pitching Finally Comes Through in Shutout Win

• Ryan: 6 IP, 0 R, 8 K, 0 BB

Game 81 | MIN 10, SEA 1: Offense Explodes in Rain-Delayed Series Finale

• Larnach: 3-5, HR, 3 RBI

Game 82 | MIN 4, DET 1: Strong Work from Festa Lifts Twins to Third Straight Win

• Festa: 5.2 IP, 2 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 6 K

Game 83 | DET 10, MIN 5: Tigers Launch Four Homers Off Struggling Ober

• Ober: 5.2 IP, 11 H, 7 ER, 4 HR

Game 84 | DET 3, MIN 0: Skubal Overwhelms Twins on SNB, Tigers Take Series

• Twins offense: 2 H, 1 BB, 14 K

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NEWS & NOTES

Royce Lewis is once again on the comeback trail. The Twins initially indicated that his latest hamstring injury was much less serious than the one he suffered in spring training, and that estimation looks to have been proven accurate. Lewis had to wait six weeks after before starting a rehab assignment after straining his hammy in mid-March, but this time around he was back in action after only two weeks. 

Lewis started at DH for the Saints on Friday and Saturday, then at third base on Sunday. He went 0-for-8 across the three games, lowering his OPS to .313 in 34 plate appearances at Triple-A this season. The continuing lack of success against minor-league pitching, along with his .202 average and .585 OPS with the Twins this year, make it hard to believe Lewis will be some savior-like figure for the lineup, as he has been in the past. Still the Twins will surely be glad to have him back and knocking one of their non-major-league talents off the roster. 

UPDATE: On that note, the Twins DFA'ed Jonah Bride following Sunday night's game, setting the stage for Lewis to be activated on Tuesday in Miami.

Joining Lewis in the Saints lineup over the weekend was Austin Martin, who was activated from the Triple-A injured list after missing most of the first half due to hamstring issues. Martin announced his return on Thursday night by homering on the first pitch he saw, ambushing former Twins prospect Chase Petty. It will undoubtedly take Martin some time to get back up to speed, but he can absolutely help the Twins in the second half.

HIGHLIGHTS

He leads off in the lineup and he seems to lead off the Highlights section of this column every week. Byron Buxton was again the beating heart of this Twins team, leading the charge as they finally started to show some life. It was another impressive week for the elite outfielder, who went 7-for-28 with two homers, a double and two steals. Buxton made just his second start of the season at DH on Saturday to give his legs a slight break, but was back out there in center on Sunday. 

Brooks Lee deserves to be commended for the way he's stepped up at a time where the Twins really need him. I've been skeptical of his difference-making ability because he hasn't shown much discipline and wasn't showing much power, but Lee has started flashing some real pop. He tallied two doubles and a home run among his seven hits last week, driving in four, and is now slugging .575 in his last 20 games. The underlying talent was never in doubt, so it's really encouraging to see Lee beginning to barrel more balls, especially after that season-opening back scare. You've also got to applaud the consistency: he has at least one hit 24 of the last 26 games he's started.

While Buxton has been spectacular and Lee's improvement has provided a boost, we all know this offense will never truly click unless Carlos Correa can start doing his thing. He took some promising strides last week. Correa started all seven games for the Twins at shortstop and had hits in six, finishing 7-for-26 with two homers and five RBIs. If I'm being honest, it still disturbs me that pitchers continue to attack him in the zone so aggressively, but at least Correa is beginning to respond with some aggressiveness of his own and make them pay. Will it stick this time or is it merely another passing gasp of productivity?

On Wednesday, Joe Ryan took the role of "stopper" to a new level. He was tasked not just with ending another skid for the spiraling Twins, who had dropped five straight games and 11 of 12, but with changing the course for a rotation coming undone. One of the worst stretches in franchise history led to a reportedly "fiery, emotional" behind-closed-doors meeting early in the week for the pitching staff. Ryan did what leaders do: turned words into action. 

He turned in a stellar performance against a Mariners team that had trounced Twins pitching for 17 runs in the first two games of the series, holding Seattle scoreless over six frames with eight strikeouts and no walks. The outstanding effort lowered Ryan's ERA to 2.86 on the season and improved his K/BB ratio to 104-to-20. Like Buxton, Ryan's performance has been All-Star-worthy, but unlike Buck he's no lock to make the AL team among a crowded pitching field.

Simeon Woods Richardson and David Festa followed the leader, turning in back-to-back strong outings to help the Twins win three in a row. Woods Richardson cruised through five shutout frames against Seattle on Thursday with six strikeouts and one walk. He has a 1.69 ERA in three starts since a rocky return to the rotation in early June. Festa shook off his own recent struggles on Friday night, keeping the Tigers off the board for 5 ⅔ while striking out six and walking none. That is the version of him we need to see. For Festa to deliver like that on the road against the current best team in baseball was hugely reaffirming after watching him get knocked around for 20 earned runs on six homers in his first four starts back with Minnesota.

The Twins don't need the kind of extreme brilliance from their staff that we witnessed during these three games, in which the rotation and bullpen combined to allow just two runs over 27 innings. But they need a lot more than they got in the first 22 games of June, when Minnesota pitching was blasted for a flabbergasting 6.43 ERA after looking untouchable at times during the first two months. The high-caliber performances last week, especially from SWR and Festa, were really good to see.

LOWLIGHTS

The beginnings of a turnaround from the Twins rotation in the middle of the week made it all the more dispiriting when Bailey Ober went out on Saturday night and put up another complete clunker, coughing up seven earned runs just as he did against Seattle to open the week. Between his two starts, Ober gave up seven home runs, pushing his total in the month of June to 14. That is a historic level of decimation by opposing hitters.

Obviously, this is untenable. Ober is continually giving the Twins no chance to win these games and they can't abide that at a time where they're trying to get on a run and counteract their latest freefall. But the path forward is hardly as plain to see as the severity of the problem.

Taking him out of the rotation at this point is fair game, but what does that look like? Is he going on the injured list? That's doable, given that he's been open about dealing with issues in his hip and knee. But up to this point no one has wanted to say he has an actual injury. (Almost feels semantical to me.) A less dramatic option would be to leverage the day off on Monday and skip Ober's next start, giving him a short break to regroup. This would be pretty restricting for the pitching staff as a whole; if rolling briefly with four starters, you'd like to have an extra bullpen arm available to throw some innings if needed, such as a Travis Adams or Randy Dobnak.

And to be clear, that's the kind of replacement we'd be looking at if Ober were shut down for a more extended period. With Pablo López, Zebby Matthews and Andrew Morris all sidelined by arm injuries, the well of depth has run dry and the level of replacement is ... well, replacement level. I'm not saying that should preclude the Twins from swapping out Ober if it's the best thing for Ober. But is it?

It's not like Ober's play has been entirely without redeeming qualities. First and foremost, he's been eating innings, pitching at least into the sixth in four of his five June starts. That doesn't have a lot of value when you're bleeding runs but it has some value, preserving the rest of the staff for another day. It's value you cannot count on receiving from someone like Adams or Dobnak. 

Also, while I'm certainly not going to argue he's looked good lately, I think there is at least some merit to Ober's suggestion that he is "throwing good pitches and just getting hit.” In his two starts last week, he had 12 strikeouts and one walk. Ober is in the zone. He's getting a fair number of swings and misses. He is indeed getting beat on some pretty well executed pitches, like the breaking ball down and out of the zone that Riley Greene golfed over the fence (below). Unfortunately Ober is also leaving a lot of hanging changeups and 90-MPH fastballs out over the plate, and paying for it. 

I don't know what the best answer is going forward, but it's getting really difficult to watch Ober go out and get shelled every fifth day. An IL stint, with two weeks to go until the All-Star break, seems like the most logical way to go, although Ober would need to be on board with it. 

In a week where the Twins lost four of seven, getting routed on multiple occasions yet again, there were needless to say plenty of poor performers other than Ober. Joey Wentz (7 ER in 3 ⅔ innings) comes quickly to mind. But Wentz is more symptomatic than causal of Minnesota's struggles, and I can't sweat too much about a cold week from Harrison Bader (4-for-22), Willi Castro (2-for-17) or Ryan Jeffers (1-for-17). 

Right now, Bailey Ober is the big flashing red light for a Twins team that is at least giving some indication that it's ready to get on track and show up for the second half of the season. 

TRENDING STORYLINE

The All-Star break gets underway in two weeks, on July 14th. The Twins will get four days off, and by that point, they might be able to start mapping concrete timelines for key missing players if they haven't already. The team declared on June 4th that Lopez would not throw for "at least four weeks" — that first milestone arrives this Wednesday. Matthews started playing catch about a week ago following a relatively brief shutdown of his own, hinting at cautious optimism from the training staff. Luke Keaschall has been seen ramping up baseball activities around Target Field and may not be too far from getting on the rehab track, now over two months removed from fracturing his forearm. 

With Lewis in line to return sometime during the coming week, the Twins are getting closer to whole. The entire mission in front of them right now is to hang on around the .500 mark and hope to make a push down the stretch at something resembling full strength. They didn't fare all that well during a very challenging section of the schedule in the second half of June that saw them go 4-9 against the Reds, Brewers, Mariners and Tigers, but honestly it could have been worse. The schedule lightens up a bit in July.

Sixteen days after the All-Star Game comes the trade deadline, a factor that adds some urgency to the team's efforts to get right. It's pretty hard for me to envision the Twins acting as true "sellers" at the deadline if they have a healthy Buxton, Correa and Lewis, and expect to get López back for a substantive impact. Honestly, it'd be pretty damn sad if they did do that, unless they manage to slide so far over the next four weeks that the idea of trying to earn a postseason berth becomes a flight of fancy.

So, again, that's the mission. Stay out of collapse mode, win a few series — something they've been unable to do in nine of their last 10 — and put yourself in position to at least be in the fight during August and September. The Twins will hope to set a very different tone in July following a month of June we'd all like to forget.

LOOKING AHEAD

They'll get started in Miami against a Marlins team that is very hot, but not very good. The Marlins have won seven in a row behind a solid and occasionally explosive offense, but are still eight games below .500 with the second-worst run differential in the National League. From there the Twins return to Target Field to take on a Rays team that is currently leading the AL Wild Card race. This is the type of opponent that Minnesota very much needs to beat and make inroads against in the standings. Thus, Ober's (presently) scheduled start on Friday for the series opener looms large.

TUESDAY, JULY 1: TWINS @ MARLINS — RHP Joe Ryan v. RHP Edward Cabrera
WEDNESDAY, JULY 2: TWINS @ MARLINS — RHP Simeon Woods Richardson v. RHP Janson Junk
THURSDAY, JULY 3: TWINS @ MARLINS — RHP David Festa v. RHP Eury Perez
FRIDAY, JULY 4: RAYS @ TWINS — RHP Zack Littell v. RHP Bailey Ober
SATURDAY, JULY 5: RAYS @ TWINS — RHP Taj Bradley v. RHP Chris Paddack
SUNDAY, JULY 6: RAYS @ TWINS — RHP Drew Rasmussen v. RHP Joe Ryan