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Weekly Snapshot: Mon, 7/3 through Sun, 7/9
***
Record Last Week: 3-3 (Overall: 45-46)
Run Differential Last Week: -4 (Overall: +27)
Standing: 2nd Place in AL Central (0.5 GB)
Last Week's Game Results:
Game 86 | MIN 8, KC 4: Twins Explode for Five Runs in the Eighth
Game 87 | MIN 9, KC 3: Maeda Masterful, Bats Continue to Click
Game 88 | MIN 5, KC 0: Lopez Slices Up Royals in CG Shutout
Game 89 | BAL 3, MIN 1: Bats Manage One Run in 10 Innings
Game 90 | BAL 6, MIN 2: Orioles Strike for 5 on Sonny in Second
Game 91 | BAL 15, MIN 2: First Half Ends with Emblematic Blowout
NEWS & NOTES
On Tuesday, the Twins activated Jorge López from his mental health-related injured list stint, optioning Brent Headrick to make room. López's first week back in action was fairly encouraging, with one run allowed on two hits over three innings of work. He's still not missing many bats, but on the bright side: no walks, no HBP. The right-hander has a long way to go before the Twins will be comfortable trusting him in high-leverage situations again, but it's really good to see him back on the mound.
Later in the week, Josh Winder was swapped out of the bullpen for Cole Sands, who wrapped a rehab assignment that featured six strikeouts over three scoreless frames. Sands' modest intrigue quickly faded when he returned to the mound on Sunday and got blasted, allowing six earned runs while recording one out.
HIGHLIGHTS
On Wednesday night at Target Field, I had the pleasure of being in attendance to watch one of the most finely pitched games by a Twins starter in recent history. Not only did Pablo López hurl a complete-game shutout – the second in two weeks for the Twins, following a five-year drought – but he did so in remarkably dominant fashion.
Needing only 100 pitches to get through all nine frames against Kansas City, Pablo struck out 12 while issuing zero walks, inducing 15 swinging strikes to draw his solid ERA (3.86) closer to his elite FIP (3.18).
López's career-best start set the stage for another milestone moment, as the Twins announced during Saturday's game that he was named to the All-Star team as a replacement. It's been a reaffirming run for the righty, who became the biggest long-term fixture in the rotation when the front office extended him following the Luis Arraez trade. He has a 2.72 ERA in his past six starts.
Exactly one week after Ted Wiedmann wrote here that Pablo López is better than his ERA, the assertion was backed up emphatically on the field, and now Pablo is a deserving first-time All-Star.
His gem on Wednesday night served as the finishing touch in a methodical three-game sweep against the Royals. The Twins exerted their will against this lowly last-place team, outscoring them 22-7 and leading for essentially the whole series.
Following a series victory the previous weekend in Baltimore, Minnesota was 5-1 since their much discussed closed-door meeting. It looked as though, at long last, the Twins were ready to get going on a long-awaited run and create some separation – from the Guardians, from the .500 mark, from the jaded doomsayers.
Narrator's voice: They weren't.
LOWLIGHTS
It was a week like any other: The Twins showed a glimmer of promise, rattling off three convincing wins against the Royals, then promptly annihilated any and all good vibes with an absolutely dismal showing against the Orioles to close out the pre-ASG schedule.
Minnesota's early-week success came to feel very hollow as the team reverted right back to the same bland, uninspiring, lifeless brand of baseball that pushed them into a player accountability session to begin with.
Sunday's sweep-clinching finale against the Orioles was definitively the worst the Twins have gotten their asses kicked all year: a lopsided 15-2 laugher in front of dejected hometown fans attempting to muster some semblance of enthusiasm for this lackluster product.
Look, sweeping the Royals is a meaningful accomplishment, no matter how much some people want to downplay it. They are a major-league team and while they are definitely among the worst, it's hard to win three straight against anyone, especially in such overwhelming fashion. The Royals had recently won series against the Rays and Dodgers. No one had thrown a CG SO against them all year before López did it.
But beating up Kansas City is merely requisite at this point. It's not something anyone can get all that excited about. Especially when the various signs of positivity coming out of that series get evaporated to dust within days.
The Twins pitching staff looked fantastic against a bottom-tier Royals offense. But when a quality Orioles club came to town, those flickering signs of regression danced right back to the surface.
Jhoan Duran took the loss on Friday night, allowing two runs in the 10th. Sonny Gray, representing the Twins in the All-Star Game alongside Pablo, coughed up six runs in one inning on Saturday. Joe Ryan couldn't get through five frames on Sunday, giving way to a brutal game for the bullpen.
Meanwhile, the offense went right back into the dumps. It's the same issue over and over with these guys: no staying power. Brief moments of energy from the lineup, hinting at what the front office envisioned from the start, are unfailingly halted by pervasive mega-slumps.
Byron Buxton had three hits including a home run in the July 4th win over the Royals. That's cool. Aside from that he was 1-for-16, continuing to be an overall liability as a DH batting third.
Carlos Correa notched four hits in Monday's series-opening victory. Great! He followed by going 3-for-17 the rest of the week, with zero extra-base hits and zero RBIs.
These two continue to set the tone for a team that likewise can't sustain any momentum or shake off the growing weight of underperformance, with no attributable excuse or fixable factor to fall back on.
Buxton and Correa surely are not at full health, but they are healthy enough to play. They're playing really badly. The Twins as a team are not at full health, but they've got a majority of their planned key pieces in place. For the play on the field to be this chronically poor – and getting worse, not better – is deeply unsettling because the truth is ... things are going mostly to plan.
It's past time for making major changes to that plan in-flight. This week's All-Star break offers a glaring opportunity to take action and leave the lip service behind.
TRENDING STORYLINE
Any illusions that a closed-door meeting was going to magically cure what ailed the Twins offense were quickly shattered, as the next 10 days yielded a familiar pattern: occasional modest run-scoring outbursts, heavily outweighed by droughts of emptiness and overmatched at-bats resulting in frustrating losses, with pitchers like Duran hung out to dry.
When the Twins were swept in Atlanta by the Braves, people throughout the organization (including Rocco Baldelli) were open and adamant: something has got to change. In practical terms nothing did, and here we are, not even two weeks later, coming off a much uglier sweep at home against a lesser team. The Twins continue to get worse not better, as the threat to derail an unprecedented moment of opportunity gains gravity.
No more talk. At this point, something REALLY needs to change.
The inconvenient truth of the matter is that in some ways, the Twins front office is handcuffed. They are shackled to their dual faces of the franchise.
Correa and Buxton are at the core of the team's shortcomings, and neither is going anywhere. If Correa is healthy enough to play, he'll be at shortstop everyday. If Buxton is healthy enough to play (but not enough to play CF), he'll be the DH. You can talk about moving them down in the order but that's a negligible factor at this point.
If Correa and Buxton don't play significantly better down the stretch, the Twins are pretty much hopeless. That part is what it is.
Even in the face of that maddeningly uncontrollable reality, however, the front office can take steps to shake things up in other areas. A few moves that stand out to me as distinct possibilities:
Moving on from David Popkins. His case for remaining in place has only grown more flimsy since I pondered the hitting coach's job security two months ago. Making him scapegoat for the lineup's struggles is a drastic oversimplification, and removing him won't be a miracle cure, but a new voice atop the hitting coach instruction group seems like a no-brainer.
Replacing Joey Gallo on the roster with Matt Wallner or Trevor Larnach. In the first few weeks of the season, Gallo was pretty good. It looked like the one-year gamble signing might work out. I think by now we can fairly say it hasn't. Since the start of May, Gallo has the third-lowest fWAR on the team. His occasional solo home run really doesn't offer any compelling value at this point amid an endless sea of strikeouts, and as a 29-year-old on a one-year deal he offers no upside. Give his playing time to someone with a future here.
Informing Max Kepler he'll be playing center field regularly against right-handed pitchers. One of the clearest offensive weaknesses in the Twins lineup is center field, where Michael A. Taylor and Willi Castro have been splitting time as Buxton mans DH. With Kepler's bat rounding into form a bit, he'd offer much more value in center, making room for someone like Wallner or Larnach to replace Taylor or Castro in the lineup against RHP. Based on reports, Kepler's lack of CF playing time in recent years owes mainly to his own preference. Too bad – he doesn't write the lineups, and it's time to start doing what is best for the team.
The Twins need to get unstuck from their ways. That means making some tough decisions and making some people uncomfortable. These are just three examples of moves that would give fans some actual reason to believe something might change, as opposed to blind faith and adherence to the status quo.
LOOKING AHEAD
The Twins will lick their wounds over a four-day break for the Midsummer Classic before returning to action in Oakland against one of the few teams that can contend with Kansas City's level of ineptitude. Although the bad taste of this series against the Orioles will linger for much of the next week, the Twins will have a chance to rinse it quickly afterward.
MONDAY, 7/10: Home Run Derby
TUESDAY, 7/11: All-Star Game @ Seattle
FRIDAY, 7/14: TWINS @ ATHLETICS
SATURDAY, 7/15: TWINS @ ATHLETICS
SUNDAY, 7/16: TWINS @ ATHLETICS
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