Week in Review: Falling Flat

Weekly Snapshot: Mon, 5/13 through Sun, 5/19
***
Record Last Week: 0-6 (Overall: 24-22)
Run Differential Last Week: -24 (Overall: +3)
Standing: 3rd Place in AL Central (5.5 GB)

Last Week's Game Results:

Game 41 | NYY 5, MIN 1: Bombers Cool Off Red-Hot Minnesota
Game 42 | NYY 4, MIN 0: Pablo Battles, Offense Bottled Up
Game 43 | NYY 5, MIN 0: Yankees Sweep Away Punchless Twins
Game 44 | CLE 3, MIN 2: Ramirez Beats Duran, Sleepy Twins
Game 45 | CLE 11, MIN 4: Slide Continues in Sloppy Blowout
Game 46 | CLE 5, MIN 2: Guardians Get to Duran Again in Walk-Off

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NEWS & NOTES

The Twins got back Byron Buxton following a relatively short stay on the injured list. The 30-year-old was activated in Cleveland on Saturday, 15 days after being shelved with knee inflammation, thus giving the team a much-needed defensive upgrade in center field, as well as a boost on the basepaths--where he made things happen late in Sunday's game. 

In a corresponding move, Austin Martin was sent back to Triple-A, where he'll focus on jumpstarting his offensive game; Martin is batting just .224 with a .644 OPS through 30 big-league games, which doesn't work too well when the defense has largely been underwhelming.

In the bullpen, it looks like Jay Jackson's time as a Twin has already reached an end. Last week in this column, I noted that "patience from the coaching staff has to be wearing very thin, especially with Jackson," with his performance going beyond merely bad and venturing into the realm of unusable. Another disastrous outing on Saturday (1 IP, 4 H, 3 ER) proved to be the final straw; Jackson was designated for assignment after the game. 

We'll see where the 36-year-old goes from here. He might end up passing through waivers and going to St. Paul, but (as Rocco Baldelli noted) unless he can find some of his lost velocity, there's really no chance for Jackson in the big leagues. It's unfortunate to see, as a lot of people (including me) were really rooting for the guy. But bargain-bin reliever signings are what they are.

For now, Caleb Boushley has been called up to fill the vacant bullpen spot, although that hardly seems permanent. I would expect to see Jorge Alcalá return soon to assume a similar role to Jackson's. But, with the Twins and Alcalá these days, you never know.

HIGHLIGHTS

Um, well, let's see. Simeon Woods Richardson pitched pretty well on Friday night, holding Cleveland to one run over 5 ⅓ innings, with no walks allowed and a whole bunch of grounders. He did his part to get Minnesota off to a strong start in a key series, even if no one else answered the call.

Through six starts and just over 30 innings with the Twins this year, SWR has a remarkable 2.97 ERA. True, a glance at his Statcast sliders suggests this level of success is probably not sustainable, but regardless, it's really encouraging to see what Woods Richardson is doing at age 23 in the majors, especially given that many had more or less written him off coming into this season.

Chris Paddack also closed out the week with a very strong and encouraging outing, holding Cleveland to two runs over eight innings on Sunday – the deepest start of his career – but like Woods Richardson's start two nights earlier, it was all for naught thanks to a lineup that right now is incapable of even putting up a fight.

LOWLIGHTS

It was simply staggering to watch this offense, which lit up the league – including some very high-caliber pitching – over the course of nearly a month, completely shut down over the past week. They looked about as limp and lifeless as they did in their worst moments during the season-opening 7-13 slump that we all hoped to forget.

Over the course of six games against the Yankees and Guardians, Twins hitters batted .166 with just 10 extra-base hits (three homers), seven GIDP, and 36 runners left on base. They scored only nine runs total, and four of those came essentially in garbage time, late in Saturday's blowout loss to Cleveland.

The offensive group was so roundly terrible over the past week that it hardly feels worthwhile to call out individual culprits, but these players and performances are especially alarming:

• Carlos Santana saw his nice little hot streak come to an abrupt halt, following last weekend's three-homer outburst by going 3-for-24 with no extra-base hits, no RBIs, no walks, and seven strikeouts. His OPS, which was briefly flirting with .700, is now back down to .630. When you're getting this kind of production out of your everyday first baseman, it puts a real hamper on the lineup as a whole.
• Getting zero production from your leadoff man is also a pretty major impediment for a lineup, and unfortunately that's been the case for Minnesota with Edouard Julien failing to find his groove at the plate. He went 2-for-18 without an RBI or run scored, striking out six times without drawing a single walk. Aside from a few flurries of power, Julien's been a far cry from the consistently imposing offensive threat we saw last year. Walks are down, strikeouts are up, and Julien is slugging just .204 in the month of May.
• Trevor Larnach went 0-for-13 with five strikeouts, extending his hitless streak to 18 plate appearances while drawing starts as the No. 2 hitter. Another key lineup spot delivering nothing whatsoever, which helps tell the story of this offense lately. You hope Larnach's just going through a temporary slump rather than reverting to the famine-over-feast form that has largely defined his inability to break through in the majors. Especially because there are really no alternatives to take his ABs. Alex Kirilloff has been awful for about six weeks and Matt Wallner looks broken in Triple-A.
• Christian Vázquez carries the lowest expectations of any hitter on the team, given his role as a glove-first backup catcher, but he's still managing to fall drastically short of them. Vázquez went 0-for-9 and fell to 1-for-30 in the month of May, during which he has drawn zero walks. Out of 308 major-league players with 80 or more plate appearances, Vázquez ranks dead last with a .174 wOBA. This looks like an aging, worn-down player who has completely lost his ability to produce anything at the plate, and that is legitimately scary to contemplate with the suddenly budget-strapped Twins on the hook for $20 million this year and next.

Beyond all the conspicuously awful performances, what strikes me most is the inability of anybody to step up and break this miserable pattern. Ryan Jeffers launched another homer to open last week but has otherwise cooled from his otherworldly heater, which is understandable. Max Kepler too experienced a not-unexpected downswing. But where is everyone else? Royce Lewis ain't walking through that door. (Not for a few more weeks, at least.) The offensive ineptitude that plagues this lineup is frustratingly contagious, with fruitless at-bats and futile innings continuing to pile up in perpetuity. 

The Twins managed to post one crooked number in the entire week, and that came in a meaningless circumstance. In six games they went 4-for-32 with runners in scoring position, and three of those four hits came in that ninth inning on Saturday, so again, meaningless. 

The timing of this collapse could have hardly been worse, coming against a Yankees team that has notoriously terrorized the psyche of Twins fans for more than two decades, and a rival Cleveland team that grew its lead in the AL Central, taking back five games in the standings. It's almost impossible to imagine a more morale-crushing turn of events following that charmed 17-3 run. 

Seeing the Minnesota Twins sink back into this sorry state after seemingly finding their way out of it makes it pretty difficult to believe this is not – to a large extent – simply who they are. 

TRENDING STORYLINE

If the Twins offense continues to flounder like this, and the front office finds itself looking for a way to jolt them back to life, there aren't many appealing options in the organization at the moment. Brooks Lee remains sidelined indefinitely. The 40-man roster is largely bereft of standout bats. Martin was part of the problem before going down, and Wallner, as we discussed, is a mess. Yunior Severino is batting .148 at Triple-A. 

But looking down just a little further, to Double-A, we find Emmanuel Rodriguez, who's been the biggest bright spot in the Twins system thus far. While the entire major-league lineup was flailing and failing over the past week, Twins Daily's No. 3 prospect was busy going 6-for-17 with two homers, a triple and NINE walks for the Wichita Wind Surge, improving his OPS season to 1.028 on the season.

He's only 21, and you certainly don't want to rush a developing prospect out of panic, but if the Twins are looking to shake things up and find some sort of spark for the offense, it's an option. Really at this time their only option. 

LOOKING AHEAD

A pair of left-handed starters are on tap in Washington, where the Twins will face a sub-.500 Nationals team that offers a decent chance to get right. Get ready to see old friend Joey Gallo, who is batting .129 for his new team. Over the weekend, the defending champs will visit Target Field, with the Rangers in town for three games. Here's hoping for better days ahead.

MONDAY, MAY 20: TWINS @ NATIONALS – RHP Pablo Lopez v. LHP Mitchell Parker
TUESDAY, MAY 21: TWINS @ NATIONALS – RHP Joe Ryan v. LHP Patrick Corbin
WEDNESDAY, MAY 22: TWINS @ NATIONALS – RHP Simeon Woods Richardson v. RHP Jake Irvin
FRIDAY, MAY 24: RANGERS @ TWINS – RHP Michael Lorenzen v. RHP Bailey Ober
SATURDAY, MAY 18: RANGERS @ TWINS – TBD v. RHP Chris Paddack
SUNDAY, MAY 19: RANGERS @ TWINS – RHP Jon Gray v. RHP Pablo Lopez