Week in Review: Sticking to the Script

Weekly Snapshot: Mon, 8/7 through Sun, 8/13
***
Record Last Week: 3-4 (Overall: 62-58)
Run Differential Last Week: -8 (Overall: +39)
Standing: 1st Place in AL Central (4.5 GA)

Last Week's Game Results:

Game 114 | MIN 9, DET 3: Bats Break Through Against Lefty Starter
Game 115 | DET 6, MIN 0: Dominant E-Rod Snaps Winning Streak
Game 116 | DET 9, MIN 5: Ober, Balazovic Bomb in Ugly Loss
Game 117 | DET 3, MIN 0: Offense No-shows Again Behind Solid Maeda
Game 118 | PHI 13, MIN 2: Phillies Obliterate Twins Pitching in Blowout
Game 119 | MIN 8, PHI 1: Lopez, Gallo Lead in Slump-Ending Victory
Game 120 | MIN 3, PHI 0: Gray Combines with Bullpen for Shutout

NEWS & NOTES

The Twins had some injury scares last week, with Donovan Solano tweaking his knee in Detroit and Max Kepler taking a(nother!) ball off his toe in Philly, but it appears both players avoided anything too serious. Solano was back in the starting lineup on Sunday at DH and Kepler entered later as a sub.

It was a fairly quiet week in terms of roster action, with Minnesota making only one move: swapping out Brent Headrick after he threw 67 pitches on Friday for a fresh arm in Cole Sands.

The impending return of Royce Lewis is the big roster storyline. We'll cover it in depth shortly.

HIGHLIGHTS

The Twins sandwiched a very ugly stretch of baseball between some fine efforts against the Tigers and Phillies, with a pair of blowout wins and a shutout bookending their brutal midweek four-game losing streak. 

Among the highlights from the past seven days: 

• Joey Gallo shaking out of his massive slump with a two-homer, 4-for-4 game on Saturday night.
• Pablo López firing six shutout innings against the Phillies in the same game, lowering his ERA to 3.66 on the season and improving to 3-0 with 0.47 ERA in three August starts. 
• Sonny Gray (6 IP, 0 ER) and Kenta Maeda (6 IP, 1 ER) adding their own brilliant efforts, and fortifying confidence in what is quickly taking shape as the likely Twins playoff rotation. Combined, that trio has a collective 3.05 ERA and 122-to-24 K/BB ratio in 18 starts since the All-Star break, including a 1.84 ERA and 49-to-2 K/BB ratio in August.
• Michael A. Taylor delivering a pair of web gems in the same inning on Friday night, albeit in a losing effort, and adding another diving catch in a much more meaningful spot on Saturday.

Perhaps most consequential of all: Carlos Correa shows real signs of coming on. He ran his hitting streak to eight games in a week where he was 8-for-19 with three homers, two doubles and six RBIs. Importantly: his plate approach was noticeably improved, resulting in a 3-to-4 K/BB ratio.

Will this be the breakthrough that sticks? I'm skeptical, but hopeful. It would be a massive development for the Twins and their postseason outlook.

LOWLIGHTS

The Twins offense can't shake free of its eternal pattern, with each short burst of life followed by an inevitable return to widespread mega-slumping. The lineup impressively scored nine runs in the series opener against Detroit, then got shut out twice in the next three games, and barely made a whimper in the opener against Philly. Sunday saw another unremarkable left-handed starter mow through the Twins lineup with ease.

Ranger Suarez was one of five lefties the Twins saw in seven games, which helped to minimize the impacts of Edouard Julien (1-for-16) and Matt Wallner (2-for-18). The prevalence of LH match-ups made it all the more frustrating that aside from Correa, Minnesota's right-handed bats continued to flounder. 

Kyle Farmer went 3-for-21 with one walk and zero extra-base hits. Christian Vázquez was 2-for-15. Taylor was 2-for-20, offsetting his defensive excellence. Willi Castro (stunningly the LEADOFF hitter in Friday night's blowout loss) was 2-for-19. 

It's understood these aren't great hitters overall, but their collective inability to produce at all in favorable spots is just killing the Twins offense. 

Meanwhile, the once-exemplary Minnesota pitching staff is experiencing a major midseason swoon. We can only hope it's temporary. As Aaron Gleeman tweeted, their 13-run shellacking by the Phillies on Friday night left them with the worst ERA and second-highest OPS allowed in the American League since the All-Star break, though they rebounded nicely the next two days.

The Dallas Keuchel experiment, as expected, quickly went off the rails, as Philadelphia hitters feasted on his soft arsenal for six runs on six hits and two walks in 1 ⅔ innings. In two starts with the Twins, Keuchel struck out zero of the 36 batters he faced, yielding a 9.45 ERA that's even worse than last year's mark (9.20). 

We've likely seen the end of Keuchel's ill-fated Twins tenure, with Louie Varland looking like a far superior option (3-0 with a 0.47 ERA in three August starts at Triple-A) and throwing a gem on the same night. It was a worth a shot.

The fifth rotation spot is not of terribly high concern in the grand scheme – you only need four starters at most for the playoffs – but Bailey Ober's struggles are more troubling, from both a micro and macro perspective. 

Just two starts after giving up a season-high 11 hits against the Royals, he matched that total against the Tigers on Wednesday, allowing five runs (four earned) in five innings. These two starts represented a stark departure from Ober's previous dependability, and they came against two of the league's worst offenses.

I don't necessarily want to overreact to an altogether short downturn for Ober, especially when his 7.71 ERA over the past three starts comes attached to a 17-to-1 K/BB ratio, and no detectable dip in velocity or control. But it's hard to ignore the fact that he's already well past his previous workload precedent as a pro. Rocco Baldelli and the Twins will need to be very cautious in how they proceed with this key fixture on their staff's present and future.

TRENDING STORYLINE

Lewis has convincingly looked ready in his rehab stint at St. Paul, going 5-for-12 with two homers in four games last week. He will likely rejoin the Twins on Tuesday at Target Field. The return of Lewis will force some interesting decisions elsewhere.

Most immediately, the Twins need to make room on the active roster. Who goes to make room? Jordan Luplow is a logical candidate, although he's made a nice short-term impact and Castro is more functionally redundant. Both have options.

Then the question becomes: how does Lewis fit back into the lineup? Presumably he'll take over on a semi-regular basis at third, although that seems to leave Jorge Polanco in the lurch. It would be really helpful if either of those guys could step in at first base, but there's no indication that's in the cards. 

We'll see how Lewis slots back into the lineup with a bunch of righty match-ups on deck, but the idea of him mixing into the top of the order alongside Julien, Correa and Wallner is pretty exciting.

LOOKING AHEAD

The schedule is about to get much kinder to the Twins, now that they've finally completed a grueling stretch full of consecutive road trips and few days off. All but two of their remaining games in August will be at Target Field, where they have a .580 winning percentage this year. 

Their five games in the coming week are all at home, where the Twins will face two bottom-tier opponents with a pair of off days mixed in. Here's a chance to catch their breath and hopefully rattle off some dubs.

TUESDAY, 8/15: TIGERS @ TWINS – RHP Alex Faedo v. RHP Bailey Ober
WEDNESDAY, 8/16: TIGERS @ TWINS – RHP Reese Olson v. RHP Kenta Maeda
FRIDAY, 8/18: PIRATES @ TWINS – TBD v. TBD
SATURDAY, 8/19: PIRATES @ TWINS – RHP Mitch Keller v. RHP Pablo Lopez
SUNDAY, 8/20: PIRATES @ TWINS – RHP Quinn Priester v. RHP Sonny Gray