Week in Review: Holding Ground

Weekly Snapshot: Mon, 4/10 through Sun, 4/16
***
Record Last Week: 4-3 (Overall: 10-6)
Run Differential Last Week: +5 (Overall: +18)
Standing: 1st Place in AL Central (1.0 GA)

Last Week's Game Results:

Game 10 | CWS 4, MIN 3: Sloppy Sox Squeak by Behind Cease
Game 11 | MIN 4, CWS 3: Bunt and Error Lead to 10th-Inning Walk-Off
Game 12 | MIN 3, CWS 1: Pitching Paves Way in Painful Series Clincher
Game 13 | MIN 11, NYY 2: Nine-Run First Sparks Blowout Bronx Victory
Game 14 | MIN 4, NYY 3: Clutch Correa Fuels Late Comeback Win
Game 15 | NYY 6, MIN 1: Germán, Yankees Stick It to Twins
Game 16 | NYY 2, MIN 0: Cole Dominates in Two-Hit Shutout

NEWS & NOTES

We're barely halfway through April and the injury-related developments are mounting for the Twins. Not all news was negative on the health front last week, and we'll get to the positives shortly, but already this team is going through it from a physical standpoint. 

The most harrowing moment of the week came in Wednesday afternoon's win over the White Sox, when shortstop Kyle Farmer was hit directly in the face by a 92 MPH fastball from Lucas Giolito. Farmer was on the ground for a while before walking off on his own power, face bloodied and buried in a towel. He underwent emergency surgery to repair his teeth and a jaw laceration, but thankfully avoided any fracture. Replaced on the roster by Kyle Garlick, Farmer is out indefinitely. 

Later in the same game, Byron Buxton had a scary collision on the basepaths that caused him to flip over and land on his head. He avoided serious injury and was back in the lineup on Thursday. He seems to be fine although his performance since casts a bit of doubt on that.

Joey Gallo, like Max Kepler before him, was unable to avoid the injured list, but his intercostal issue seems fairly minor as Gallo was already appearing in rehab games for St. Paul by the weekend. The Kepler and Gallo IL moves opened the door for top prospects Matt Wallner and Edouard Julien to join the big-league roster, with Julien debuting last Wednesday at Target Field. He wasted no time showcasing his potent bat, homering in his second game while drawing three starts in the leadoff spot. 

Kepler was activated from the IL on Saturday, sending Wallner back to Triple-A after he went 0-for-8 in his short stint with the Twins. He'll surely be back soon enough. 

Meanwhile, Jorge Polanco was joined on his rehab stint at Class-A Fort Myers by Alex Kirilloff, who made his first official 2023 game appearance for the Mighty Mussels on Tuesday, playing first and batting third. The two are now solidly on the path back to MLB action, and both took a big step on Sunday by starting a day game following a night game. 

Kirilloff is still a little farther off, but Polanco's return feels near. He'll likely move up to Triple-A in the days ahead, and it wouldn't be a huge shock if he was back in the majors by this time next week.

HIGHLIGHTS

Carlos Correa was off to another slow start, with a .492 OPS and two RBIs through his first eight games of the season, before back spasms sidelined him for the entire White Sox series last week. C4 came back with a bang for the Yankees series, where his bat awakened and made a huge impact in the series split. 

The shortstop homered as part of Minnesota's nine-run outburst in the first on Thursday at Yankee Stadium, contributing to an 11-2 shellacking, but he was far more pivotal in Friday's comeback win. Correa's solo homer off Nestor Cortes in the sixth cut New York's lead down to one, and two innings later he delivered a clutch two-run double against star closer Clay Holmes to put the Twins in front.

Huge hits in huge moments against top competition: exactly what the Twins need from Correa if they are to stay on this course and fulfill their potential. 

The move to re-sign Correa paid off big last week, as did a few of the front office's lower-key pickups from late in the offseason. That includes Donovan Solano, whose addition in early spring training now looks like a brilliant move – he's been leaned on heavily amidst early injuries, helping make up for the absence of Luis Arraez by batting .340 in a 1B/DH role, including 10-for-27 last week while starting every game.

A more surprising factor in the offense was Michael A. Taylor, who entered the week with a .194/.219/.258 slash line before breaking out for three homers, including two in Thursday's series-opening win against the Yankees. We discussed Taylor here last week as a weak link in the offense – a "designated fielder" necessitated by Buxton's entrenchment at DH – but against Chicago and New York, he flashed some ability with the bat.

Taylor is never going to be a true asset offensively, and his brutal 21-to-0 K/BB ratio should keep optimism surrounding this hot streak in check. However, he has shown in the past he can hit for a bit of power. If Taylor can knock one out of the park here and there, it'll make Buxton's strict DH usage much easier to abide.

While some of the hitters started to click, the Twins pitching staff continued to excel. Pablo López had perhaps his most impressive performance yet, rebounding from a rough opening against the White Sox on Tuesday to retire 23 straight hitters en route to this final line: 7.2 IP, 3 H, 2 ER, 1 BB, 10 K. He then added six innings of two-run ball against the Yankees on Sunday, although he was outdueled by a lights-out Gerrit Cole.

While the offense stole the show in Thursday's 11-2 beatdown, Joe Ryan's performance was equally impressive. Staked with a huge early lead, Ryan fired strikes and cruised through seven innings of one-run ball, striking out 10 with no walks and three hits allowed. 

A very notable aspect of Ryan's strong rookie season was how starkly divided his results were based on quality of opponent: he consistently obliterated weak lineups like the Royals and Tigers, but tended to struggle against power-laden units packing dangerous bats. As such, Ryan's past two outings against the Astros and Yankees have served as big statements, signaling that he's ready to turn the corner to true frontline starter.

Add in Sonny Gray's five shutout frames on Wednesday, when he pitched through illness to lower his ERA to 0.53, and it's been an extremely encouraging start to the season for the top of Minnesota's rotation. Twins fans came into this year wondering if there was an ace or even a clear-cut No. 1 within this bunch of quality starters, and here in April we've got three different guys pitching to that standard.

We also saw Minnesota's back-end starting pitching depth come into play when Louie Varland was called up Friday for a spot start, delivering a solid effort with three runs allowed in six innings. Giving fatigued Kenta Maeda a break, Varland struck out eight and walked one, looking every bit like the MLB-caliber starter we know him to be. And he was only the choice because Bailey Ober was unavailable after throwing six shutout innings at Triple-A the day before. 

The Twins are in ridiculously good shape on the starting pitching front. (Knock on wood, etc.) We shouldn't let that overshadow what's going on in the bullpen, though.

In a week where Jhoan Durán had a couple of rare hiccups, surrendering two home runs and blowing a lead against Chicago, his co-closer counterpart Jorge López showed the same form that made him an elite reliever and All-Star in the first-half of 2022. López pitched twice in close games, firing shutout innings against the White Sox on Wednesday and the Yankees on Friday to protect slim leads in eventual victories. 

Last year after the trade, López's pitches were all over the place, exhibiting an obvious lack of command and confidence. This year he's got both back in spades, and it's resulting in near-perfection on the mound. In 6 ⅔ scoreless innings, the righty has allowed two singles, a double, and – crucially – no walks. 

This bullpen is cooking with López locked in alongside Durán and Griffin Jax, who also delivered in a couple of huge high-leverage spots last week, and ranks second among MLB relievers in Win Probability Added.

LOWLIGHTS

At his best, Buxton is a game-changing offensive force that you love to have at the heart of your lineup, even as designated hitter. We saw that during the first six weeks last year, when he slashed .259/.330/.706 through May 15th to generate early MVP buzz. We saw it at the start of this season, when he went 6-for-13 in the Royals series while spraying balls all over the field and making big plays with his legs.

But after May 15th last year, Buxton slashed just .212/.299/.467 with a 31% K-rate, becoming more of an all-or-nothing slugger than dynamic offensive force. And since that season-opening KC series this year, he's slashed .166/.239/.310 with a 46% K-rate. His slump snowballed to a crescendo over the weekend when he struck out in all seven plate appearances on Saturday and Sunday while the offense failed to find life. 

It's possible Buxton is still feeling the effects of his collision at second base on Wednesday; he's gone 0-for-12 with 10 strikeouts since. But there are no evident signs of anything amiss physically – his approach is frankly a mess.

Buxton doesn't strike me as as guy who takes failure too well. It's gotta be tough on him mentally to keep whiffing and then stewing in the dugout about it for several innings. You wonder if the Twins will consider giving him some time in center as a way to help get him right at the plate.

Elsewhere, the return of Kepler did nothing to bolster the Twins' run-scoring prowess. He'd been heating up slightly before he got hurt, but Kepler fell right back into his old habits, compiling ineffective at-bats on the way to an 0-for-6 showing in two games, which included a rally-killing 4-6-3 GIDP. Kepler is now slashing .091/.130/.227 on the season.

Minnesota's offense shows the potential to be top-tier, especially if they can get Polanco and Kirilloff back at something resembling full strength in the near future. But it's going to be tough to find consistency when their DH and right fielder aren't giving them much of anything.

TRENDING STORYLINE

Gallo's placement on IL last Tuesday was retroactive to April 8th, meaning he's already eligible to return this coming Tuesday, when the Twins open their next series at Fenway against the Red Sox. Given that the veteran appears fully healthy, they probably won't wait to make a move. The question is: who comes off the roster to make room for Gallo?

Garlick would be a straightforward answer, given that his niche usage makes him a fairly extraneous piece on the bench. He does have concrete value though, and showed it on Friday when he started against the left-hander Cortes and homered off him. 

Julien is probably the most likely to go. As a lefty corner bat, he's more redundant with Gallo (and Kepler, and Larnach, and Gordon), and he's hardly been dominating during his initial MLB stint despite some nice flashes. Like Wallner's, the demotion would not be permanent. 

Beyond the roster shuffle, Gallo's impact on the day-to-day lineups will be interesting. Solano's been hitting too well to justify benching regularly, even against right-handers. Trevor Larnach isn't going to sit. So long as Buxton remains the everyday DH, that doesn't leave a lot of room for Gallo ... unless Kepler is out of the lineup. I expect we'll start seeing that happen with increasing frequency, and it could be the first step toward parting ways with the long-time right field stalwart midway through the season.

LOOKING AHEAD

The Twins get a bit of a respite from their April gauntlet, facing two big-market teams that won World Series as recently 2018 and 2019 but are both in varying states of rebuild. Theoretically Minnesota should be favored in all of these games. It's the kind of opportunity you want to take advantage of, especially coming off a pair of flat performances to close out the New York series. 

TUESDAY, 4/18: TWINS @ RED SOX – RHP Sonny Gray v. LHP Chris Sale
WEDNESDAY, 4/19: TWINS @ RED SOX – RHP Joe Ryan v. RHP Corey Kluber
THURSDAY, 4/20: TWINS @ RED SOX – RHP Tyler Mahle v. RHP Tanner Houck
FRIDAY, 4/21 NATIONALS @ TWINS – RHP Trevor Williams v. RHP Kenta Maeda
SATURDAY, 4/22: NATIONALS @ TWINS – RHP Chad Kuhl v. RHP Pablo Lopez
SUNDAY, 4/23: NATIONALS @ TWINS – LHP Patrick Corbin v. RHP Sonny Gray