Matthew Trueblood

Image courtesy of © Jesse Johnson-Imagn Images In the ninth inning of the Twins' latest demoralizing loss, the Milwaukee Brewers issued Byron Buxton an intentional walk. They put the winning run on base and gave up the platoon advantage, just to trade having to face Buxton for getting to face Matt Wallner. It was, in a sense, a risky maneuver. With Buxton's speed, a double by Wallner would have ended the game, and the chances of a double-steal by Harrison Bader and Buxton were not insignificant. Right-handed Brewers closer Trevor Megill is, like most righties, better against right-handed batters. Yet, the visitors felt comfortable going after Wallner instead of Buxton. It paid off. On a 2-0 pitch, Megill threw a fastball on the inner third at 98.7 miles per hour. It's never easy to hit 99, but as such pitches go, this one was manageable. It's the kind of pitch you need your elite power guy to hit a long way, especially in that situation—and especially with the benefit of a count in which he could look for that pitch and try to gear up for it. Unfortunately, Wallner popped it up, harmlessly, for the second out of the inning. M3k0M3lfWGw0TUFRPT1fQWdOWFZsQlNWZ1lBV1FOV0J3QUhVZ0JRQUFOVUFRQUFBQUZXVkFVQ0J3VmNDUWRT.mp4 This is a pattern, lately. Wallner is hitting an atrocious .164/.243/.418 since his return from the injured list on May 31. Though his strikeout rate this year is a career-best 29.1%, he's become more all-or-nothing than ever at the plate, because he's popping the ball up- or hitting it weakly more often than in the past. The problem lies in his swing path. Here are the average swing tilt, bat speed, attack angle, attack direction and contact point numbers for Wallner, in each month in which he's had substantial playing time since the start of 2024. Month Year Bat Speed (MPH) Swing Tilt (°) Attack Angle (°) Attack Dir. (°) Ideal Att. Ang. % Contact Pt. v. Batter July 2024 77.1 31.1 9.7 -1.5 46.2% 33.8 August 2024 77.4 31.9 12.1 -4.9 53.4% 37.3 September 2024 77.2 33.1 13.4 -3.7 44.8% 36.8 April 2025 76.6 29.9 11.2 -1.4 57.4% 34.9 June 2025 76.0 26.4 12.0 -8.6 56.7% 39.0 Wallner has lost a little bit of sheer bat speed, but he had that to give, and then some. What he couldn't afford to lose, however, was the tilt on his swing. The way his body and bat are working, now, he's getting out around the ball far too much, and catching it too far out in front of himself to get the ball flush on the barrel. Instead, though he's often able to make contact, he's frequently hitting it straight up in the air. It might initially surprise you to hear that a flatter bat makes for more pop-ups, but if you think about it a bit, it's easy to see how it happens. Consider some side-by-side screenshots of Wallner at the contact point. Here's a comparison between a pitch on which he homered last August, and one on which he popped up to the middle of the infield in Seattle this year. As you can see, the ball on the left was a few inches lower. That's key. Wallner's adjustment appears to be an effort to cover the top of the zone better, because his higher-tilt swing did lead to lots of whiffs on fastballs up around the letters. Equally obvious, though, is the tradeoff. A tilted swing path means that if you're slightly off on timing, you can still hit the ball on a productive trajectory: a high line drive, or a fly ball that will carry. It might go foul, or slice oddly to the opposite field, but it's likely to be a ball that goes forward more than up or down. A flat swing puts you at greater risk of hitting the top or bottom of the ball, though it makes it more likely that you make contact with it at all. Here's another side-by-side. One shows a home run Wallner hit against the White Sox last summer; the other shows a ball on which he flew out to right this April. Here, too, the ball he crushed was a bit lower, and your temptation might be to decide that he just needs to set his sights lower with this new swing—or even that the only reason why his swing looks flatter is because he's swinging at higher pitches. It's not that, though. From the center-field camera, it's hard to tell, but he's also too early on the ball on the right. That means both that he's getting to it a hair sooner, before it has time to drop those precious few millimeters; and that he's less able to manipulate the barrel of his bat to find the ball. The change in his average tilt (and the other metrics) still shows up if you isolate pitches in particular locations, but just to prove that location isn't the sole issue, here's a ball from this month on which he caught the top half, rather than the bottom. ek1MajlfWGw0TUFRPT1fQUFZRFZWTlJWUU1BRDFjRlVnQUhCVklIQUFOVVVsa0FBVk5YQ0ZkVUFnZFRBbEFD.mp4 That's a pretty fat fastball, below the belt and with plenty of plate around it. The Twins need Wallner to elevate that ball, especially with a runner on third and one out. Unfortunately, this version of his swing makes his barrel much less accurate than it used to be. To see a bit of the biomechanics involved, here's a side-by-side set of screenshots from Baseball Savant's visualization tool for the new swing path metrics they provide. These are both from the frame of the animation where Wallner starts to get on plane with the incoming pitch—where the bat stops its downward travel from above his shoulder to the hitting zone and begins tracking uphill, to find the incoming pitch. As you can see, that change is happening a bit earlier in the arc of his swing this year. Wallner's getting on plane while his left arm is still roughly level with his back leg, whereas in 2024, he was already steering forward and opening his front shoulder more by that point. Were his swing tilt the same, that could (plausibly) be a good thing, but there are two problems here: Early Bat Speed: In the image on the left, from last year, you can see that the momentary speed of his barrel is already 73 miles per hour, an extraordinary number. For a hitter to generate that much speed that early in their swing, they have to have generated some tilt, to give their body and their implement room to get moving. On the right, he's only at 70 mph. Remember, though he's slightly down this year, he gets to nearly the same final swing speed at contact—but this means that more of that speed is coming in the final phase of the swing this year, so he can't control his barrel at all as it flies through the hitting zone. It also means that if he's slightly late, this year, he's unable to hit it as hard as he could if he was slightly late last year. The Flattening: The stills don't reveal it, but we know it, and you can see it for yourself if you visit the Savant tool and watch the full animations. Wallner's swing isn't much steeper early, while the bat is behind him. That all comes as he brings it around, staying a bit more upright and reaching more. Remember how he's also catching the ball farther out front, in terms of contact point? That's because his swing sweeps long and flat through the area just in front of him, over the plate. He's less prone to whiffs, in theory, but his timing is so off that he's whiffing more than in the past, anyway. He's hitting some balls he would have missed last year, but he's also mishitting some balls he crushed last year. The late acceleration of his swing means trying to get around the ball more, and doing that means not staying through it as well. Wallner could figure this all out fairly quickly and get right back to being an elite hitter. He has a fairly solid understanding of the strike zone; exceptional bat speed; less loop and hitch in his attack than many hitters with similarly vicious hacks; and sneaky secondary skills, like his speed. However, he seems to be making an intentional evolution aimed at becoming more complete at the plate. If that's his goal, so far, it's been a noble but doomed attempt. In all likelihood, the right thing for his profile is to get back to getting more tilt in his swing path. There will be other necessary adjustments once he achieves that, but without it, he might continue to miss hittable pitches at times when the Twins desperately need his power to play. View full article

Appreciate the respectful approach here, Mark. Speaking as the editor who gave Cody's piece the green light, the reason we did so is this: While we DO hope to provide readers with a respite from the thornier aspects of life on a daily basis, we also believe that baseball is enmeshed with the world around it. Sports and society are in constant interaction and conversation, and while sports are important for their own sake (i.e., we spend 80% or more of our time focused only on what's contributing to wins and losses, who's doing something interesting, what prospects are coming), it does a disservice to all of us if we refuse to acknowledge the times when the real world sweeps in through Gate 34 and perches somewhere in Target Field. It might make some uncomfortable, but what Cody wrote was an appropriate message about the community response to Castro's eye black and why that response was so strong. It was worth making clear why so many feelings were stirred up by the mere colors of a player's fashion choice. We're not going to pivot toward writing about social issues instead of baseball, but there will continue to be the occasional piece that nods to and comments on important intersections between baseball and the wider world.

Image courtesy of © Matt Krohn-Imagn Images The idea of America is, arguably, the greatest in human history. Iterating on the ideas of philosophers like John Locke and Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Thomas Jefferson laid down a mission statement for a country that was, at that moment, no more than a dream: From those founding phrases came the concept of the American dream, which has taken many forms over the two and a half centuries since but never changed in its essentials. If all people are created equal, then differences between them can be not only tolerated, but celebrated. Worth need not be anchored to one's wealth, one's religion, one's skin color or one's gender. Nor must we cloister ourselves in communities of people who think, look, dress, or act alike. The seed from which all right-minded American thought grows is the idea of our essential equality with one another. If it's truly grown from that seed, the American dream blossoms into a lush and beautiful tree, branching endlessly and reaching upward, providing space for everyone to find the sun at just the angle they need and sharing the nourishment each leaf and twig draws therefrom throughout the organism, as needed. On Juneteenth, though, we are forcefully reminded that it was nearly 90 years after Jefferson and his cadre of white male landowners wrote down those ideas that they first bore any real fruit. On this date in 1865, the final enforcement order of the Emancipation Proclamation was delivered in Texas, liberating the enslaved people held there past the legal end of slavery in the newly reunited nation. Until then, plainly, America had not made good on its promises to itself or to the world. In many ways, of course, it still hasn't. That's part of why observing Juneteenth remains profoundly important. In the history of the world, there had never been a society built on the idea that it is possible to live and work alongside people with fundamentally different lifestyles, beliefs and traditions than your own, until this one. Indeed, before the founding of the United States of America, the basic definition of a nation included shared linguistic, religious, ethnic and (sometimes) racial identities. To believe we can all enjoy each other's proximity, if not each other's company, is to dream quite big—so far, too big. There's no nobility in a dream. The American dream is that anyone can start from the bottom and rise to the top, but that's not true, so the dream is fluff. It's meaningless. Just as we must comfort our children, sometimes, by reassuring them that the nightmare that sent them screaming into our beds was just a figment of imagination, we must discomfit ourselves by admitting that the American dream is just some words, not yet backed up by enough actions to make them real. We can only ennoble ourselves by doing real work—by taking the next, often viciously hard step to make that dream a reality. What, you might fairly ask, does this have to do with baseball? Well, for one thing, baseball is uniquely American, and one of America's most defining characteristics is how much Americans love their games. We use sports to forge community; to mend relationships; to tell stories; and to understand ourselves better, both individually and collectively. The Egyptians did that, too. So did the Romans, and the Ottomans and the Brits. With better technology, more security, more wealth and more discretionary time than any of those cultures enjoyed, though, we've pushed the love and the edifying influence of sport to new heights. Sports aren't just diversion, here. Sports matter. Baseball, with the longest and richest history of any American sport, matters most of all, in this particular sense, even though it's not as prominent in terms of viewership or screen time on ESPN as football. It's not as radical as it sounds—certainly, it's not as radical as it should be—to suggest that the day Jackie Robinson broke baseball's color barrier was the most important moment in the advancement toward racial equality that had happened since Juneteenth. Robinson's arrival in (and immediate dominance of) the formerly all-White National League galvanized the Civil Rights Movement. That's the kind of power baseball has, even now. It connects us to our past, for better (all the moments of hope and glory) and for worse (all the broken promises and failures), and that urges us toward our future. Baseball brings us together. For many of us, it is one of the surest pursuits of happiness we can undertake. It fills fans' hearts with enough joy to bring down some of the barriers we keep up the rest of the time, and it breaks our hearts frequently enough to keep us from getting spoiled or insensitive to the suffering of our fellow humans. You can look out across a packed Target Field and see lots of ways that the American dream is still unrealized, from the disproportionate Whiteness of the fans to the relative lack of Black players to the pulsing, often directionless commercialism, crushing in on the game and occasionally obscuring it. However, you can also see that dream being pulled, inch by inch, toward our real world. Fans from different races and cultures do attend, and often sit side-by-side, and sometimes strike up friendly conversations. There are rules to the game, and they're non-negotiable. Each team gets a chance to win on merit, and the on-field authorities ensure that the fight is fair. Racism didn't end with slavery, 160 years ago. It remains one of several things standing between us and the noble realization of the dream set forth for this country before it was even a country. It's still visible even on a ball diamond. However, on this Juneteenth, let's celebrate the fact that we're closer to making the dream a reality than we were even 160 years ago, or even 88 years ago, and endeavor to make sure that we're closer still tomorrow. If we're to celebrate our freedom, we can only do it by recognizing how much longer some had to wait for that freedom, and that for many, that freedom is still incomplete. Happily, baseball is an everyday game, and an everyday celebration. As we do the everyday work of making that freedom more widespread and more complete, we can lean on the game as an example of how change happens; an inspiration to keep grinding during slumps; and a source of the happiness that makes all that work worthwhile. View full article

Image courtesy of © Albert Cesare/The Enquirer / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images Early on, it looked like this could be another in the recent string of starts by Bailey Ober that have steadily raised the concern level around him from non-existent to very high. Byron Buxton staked his starter to a 1-0 lead with a leadoff home run, trying to burn off the humidity that lingered behind a two-hour rain delay with a rocket over the high wall in left-center field. We'll discuss Buxton a bit more later, because his continued brilliance is the best thing going on in Twins Territory right now. Right away, though, Ober gave up that lead—and then some. All season, the narrative has been there. Ober's velocity has been down since spring training, which was more notable even then than it would be for many pitchers, for multiple reasons. Firstly, of course, Ober had less margin for error, as it were; he's never been a hard thrower. Secondly, though, Ober is usually at his strongest (and his velocity is usually highest) early in the season. That he came into spring struggling to hit his usual numbers was worrisome, and indeed, he's been fighting to stay above 90 miles per hour with his heater almost all season. For several starts, he pitched around that problem, but even when his ERA didn't show the strain of his diminished speed, his strikeout rate did. In 11 starts across the months of April and May, Ober posted a 2.43 ERA, and the Twins won eight of those games. However, he only punched out 18.8% of opposing batters even during that span. After Wednesday night, he has three starts in June, and his ERA has skyrocketed to 8.31. Not missing bats has caught up to him, and we can point to an obvious reason for that inability to induce whiffs: the lost velocity. In the first inning against the Reds, he made the mistake of trying to establish his heater, and work off of it. All year, he's been (wisely) ratcheting down the usage of his fastball. With a lefty-heavy top of the lineup for the Reds, however, he tried to go after them a bit with it, so that he'd be able to go to his changeup more against the same hitters the second and third times he saw them. Try though he might, he's often been unable to find a satisfactory feel for his breaking stuff this year, which has led to slight reductions in his use of those offerings. That makes it more important that he find spots to make use of the heater to lefties, so they can't sit on his changeup. TJ Friedl singled to lead off the bottom of the first, though, and after Ober managed to get both Gavin Lux and Elly De La Cruz out, former Twins farmhand Spencer Steer stepped to the plate. Ober went after him, too, with fastballs. Big mistake. Steer saw three pitches, all of them fastballs. Ober was sitting 91-92 at that early stage of the game, but Steer rode the third pitch (a 1-1 test of the outer edge) out of the park to the opposite field, flipping the scoreboard. It was 2-1 Reds, and the Twins would never catch them. That mistake and its grave consequences illustrate the lack of a margin for error for Ober right now, but to his credit, he recovered fairly well. As the game wore on, he tweaked his approach, and perhaps his mechanics. Ober's fastball still lost velocity as the game went along, but he also began changing the way he attacked hitters. Here's a chart showing his pitch mix based on the count, for this full season. Even as he's reduced his overall fastball usage, I can make a strong case that he's leaned too much on the heater early in counts this year. On occasion, when the scouting report says that a hitter is a bit passive in a given count, he should try to sneak one by hitters, but by and large, it's time for the towering hurler to start pitching backward. It's encouraging, then, that he did just that on Wednesday night, especially after the first inning. The Reds are a very patient team, so Ober still picked spots to throw them fastballs. In fact, he tied a career high with 12 called strikes on the heater. (The other time he did so was way back in early August 2023.) As the game progressed, though, he started far more hitters with soft stuff, and used the fastball either to buy back strikes or to catch hitters looking for an offspeed pitch in a deep count. Cincinnati did put up runs in the second and third, but Ober largely regained control of the game after that Steer homer. He'd record all 17 Twins outs for the evening, before the second round of rain came and washed out the contest. His final line (5 2/3 innings, 9 hits, 4 runs, 5 strikeouts, 0 walks) is unimpressive, but he took a small step toward something viable. It appeared that he also made a slight mechanical change during the game, and there's evidence of that in the data, too. It's hard to see what he did differently from the default center-field cameras on the TV broadcasts, but Ober appeared to be more balanced as he finished his deliveries later in the game, and for the first time since roughly last July, his extension (the distance, in feet, from the front edge of the rubber to his actual release point, capturing the amount by which he shortens the distance from himself to the plate) plummeted. Interestingly, extension has not always mapped well to overall effectiveness or health for Ober, whose height and unique amount of extension have been an advantage and one way to mitigate the problem of having below-average velocity for most of his career. Whether it had to do with mound conditions, was an experiment in managing the left hip issue that has plagued him this year, or just allowed him to feel his landing foot better and stay more stable throughout his delivery, Ober seemed not to be launching himself quite as far down the mound later in his appearance, and it worked. His command of (especially) his breaking stuff improved, and so did the results. Unfortunately, for one game, that was all too little, too late. The Twins never meaningfully answered the Reds' initial volley. A pair of singles and an RBI groundout pushed across a second run against Nick Lodolo in the fourth, but the Cincinnati lefty neutralized the visitors fairly easily around that. This offense just isn't generating the kind of dangerous contact that became their trademark for most of Rocco Baldelli's tenure. It's beginning to look like a major restructuring of the offense will be required to change their fortunes, and that probably has to wait until the offseason. For now, they need to keep finding ways to create runs one or two at a time, but they should also continue working with their young core to produce the power that was expected of them just a few years ago. Buxton is the blessed exception to all of that. He hit that first-pitch home run, but he also had hard-hit balls in each of his other two plate appearances. Both were outs, but they were very well-struck air balls to the outfield. It seems like every time he steps into the box, he's hitting the ball hard. That 100-mph flyout to right field, by the way, was Buxton's 13th hard-hit ball to the opposite field this season. That's the most such batted balls he's ever had in a season, tying 2023 and 2024. It took him over 100 fewer plate appearances to get there this year than in either of the last two. He's become a pole-to-pole power threat and a better situational hitter than ever, and he's drawing walks. The Twins need several other players to follow his lead, and so far, they haven't. Nonetheless, Wednesday was a demonstration of his immense value. What's Next The good news is that the Twins didn't need their bullpen at all Wednesday night. After David Festa's start Tuesday night threatened to burn it out at the front end of a stretch in which they play 13 games without a day off, the rain gave them a nice reprieve. Chris Paddack will try to compound that relief by working deep and dominating the light-hitting Reds, while Cincinnati will trot out veteran right-hander Nick Martinez. The game starts early, at 11:40 AM Central, as the Twins wrap a miserable road trip and try to avoid having it be a winless one. View full article

Walker JenkinsLuke KeaschallEmmanuel RodriguezKaelen CulpepperAndrew MorrisDasan HillConnor PrielippKyle DeBargeCharlee SotoBrandon WinokurBilly AmickMarco RayaCJ CulpepperEduardo BeltreGabriel GonzalezCory LewisRicardo OlivarKhadim DiawDanny De AndradePayton Eeles

Walker JenkinsLuke KeaschallEmmanuel RodriguezKaelen CulpepperAndrew MorrisDasan HillConnor PrielippKyle DeBargeCharlee SotoBrandon WinokurBilly AmickMarco RayaCJ CulpepperEduardo BeltreGabriel GonzalezCory LewisRicardo OlivarKhadim DiawDanny De AndradePayton Eeles

Image courtesy of © Jesse Johnson-Imagn Images On a 2-0 pitch in the bottom of the fourth inning Tuesday night, Ryan Jeffers took a foul ball off his right hand or wrist. It caused him some immediate discomfort, but he stayed in the game for the rest of the frame. However, Christian Vázquez pinch-hit for Jeffers in the top of the fifth, and the Twins announced that Jeffers had departed with a right hand contusion. The team took X-rays, which were negative; that's good news. Still, though, Jeffers leaving helped seal the Twins' fate, as Vázquez came up with the tying and go-ahead runs on base in the ninth and made the final out in the team's fifth straight loss. Hopefully, the results of the scan mean that Jeffers avoided serious injury on the play, but this is the second time this year he's taken a hit to his throwing hand (and the top hand when he's at the plate). When there's a runner on base whom he considers a threat to steal, Jeffers will hold his bare hand in front of him, roughly in his lap. That lets him achieve a quicker transfer and release on throws to nail would-be thieves, but it also puts him at some added risk for the kind of injury he suffered Tuesday. Even without a fracture, Jeffers could miss a bit of time due to this issue. If the contusion begets swelling, it could interfere both with his efforts to generate good bat speed and with his throws from behind the plate, so the Twins are likely to have Vázquez catch at least the final two games of their series in Cincinnati. If Jeffers isn't back in the lineup (at least as the DH) by Thursday afternoon, we'll know that he's dealing with something a bit more notable. With no broken bone, Jeffers is likely to stay off the injured list, which is a relief. Vázquez is in no position, based on his age and health or on his performance, to take over as the near-full-time backstop for this team. Jeffers is an important part of the Twins lineup, for both his offensive and his defensive contributions. Without him, a weak batting order grows downright anemic. The offending batted ball came off the bat of Reds outfielder Will Benson, and appeared to hit either Jeffers's wrist or the back of his right hand. He immediately winced and spent the rest of the inning flexing and turning his hand, whenever he got an opportunity. It was no great surprise when he was lifted for Vázquez the next time his place in the order was due. The Twins were smart to get a head start on imaging, and thankfully, the absence of a break on the X-ray indicates that Jeffers should be ok. Even if he can play through this, though, expect it to have at least a minor effect on how he hits and throws. Jeffers lost a bit of bat speed in the fortnight after his previous hand issue, and William Contreras of the Brewers is severely lacking in the power department this year, largely because he's lost bat speed, too. Jeffers might be fully fine this time around, but in a frustrating loss, the Twins' most terrifying moment might have been when Jeffers had to leave the game. View full article

Image courtesy of © Erik Williams-Imagn Images We've never seen Willi Castro quite like this. Even last year, en route to his first-ever All-Star Game, he wasn't producing the way he's done it this season. In 197 plate appearances, Castro is batting .290/.365/.483, with seven home runs. More impressively, perhaps, a bunch of that production has come against left-handed pitchers, while batting righty. The switch-hitting Castro had just a .242/.288/.386 line against lefties last year, but this year, that line is .327/.351/.618. Three of Castro's homers have been off southpaws. That's been thanks to a big spike in average bat speed from the right side, from 71.9 miles per hour in 2024 to 74.2 mph this season. This year's number is the kind of bat speed that generates plus power, something Castro has never shown from the right side—until now. The sudden surge gives him a greater margin for error; it's easier for him to be on time and the ball jumps off the bat more when he makes contact. "I think I'm more prepared on the fastball. Just be on the fastball the whole time, and I just react to the other things," Castro said Thursday at Target Field. "When you're on the fastball, you know you're not gonna miss it, so you just react. You just trust your ability. When you see a curveball pop up or something, then you'll react a bit better." Part of the difference is that Castro changed his stance this year, especially from the right side. By standing a bit more upright with his feet closer together, he's effectively working from deeper in the batter's box, giving him more time to react to the pitch. His stride length hasn't materially changed, but he's much better able to generate late torque in his swing, because his weight is beneath him. Here's where Castro set up (and how his stride worked) from the right side in 2024. Compare that to 2025, and you can see the magnitude of his changes. By moving off the plate slightly, he's given himself more room to operate. Castro says much of the increase in bat speed traces to a greater sense of aggressiveness, though, rather than any major mechanical change. "I didn't really work on bat speed. I just worked to try to be more aggressive with the fastball, because I feel like last year, it was affecting me from the right side: not being on time, not getting the barrel where I wanted to," he said. "I feel like I was rushing to the ball. I feel like the ball was already on me when I wanted to swing, and I wasn't getting enough good contact, like I am right now. So I set my sight more in front. All the damage happens in the front; you want to catch the ball in front. Nothing happens when you catch the ball back here." In other words, in Castro's approach, he's gearing up to catch the ball out front more consistently. That's where things get really interesting. View full article

Image courtesy of © Ed Szczepanski-Imagn Images It looks like the Minnesota Twins will be patching together a thinner starting rotation than hoped, for longer than expected. Pablo López suffered a strained teres major muscle last week during the team's visit to West Sacramento, Calif., and now, Zebby Matthews is also on the injured list, with a strained shoulder. Twins manager Rocco Baldelli called it "very likely" that Simeon Woods Richardson would be recalled to join the rotation, although that won't happen Sunday. With Matthews down, the Twins reactivated left-handed reliever Danny Coulombe, who made a rehab appearance with Triple-A St. Paul Saturday and was ready to return, anyway. They'll operate with a nine-man bullpen in the series finale with the Toronto Blue Jays. Matthews said this is his first stint on the injured list (and first time truly missing starts) in professional baseball. He began to feel the shoulder barking before his latest start, so we can rule out the mound at Sutter Health Park as the culprit for this particular malady. "I kind of felt it after the bullpen in Tampa there," Matthews said Sunday. "I was able to throw through it in Seattle and Sacramento, but ultimately, now I'm feeling it a little bit more, so gotta take a little time off. Hopefully, it's not too long." There's no constant pain. Matthews said he mainly feels the problem during the "last part of the throw" when delivering the ball. Until that's no longer the case, though, and until he starts to feel "normal", he'll pause throwing. The timeline for returning to throwing (let alone getting back onto a big-league mound) will depend on how he responds to rest and treatment. Matthews said he underwent an MRI Saturday morning, which showed the strain, but neither he nor the team had an official diagnosis to share right away. "No real details were really discussed," Matthews said of his meeting with the team about the results of his imaging. "It was more about how I feel, and a timetable of how long they think I'll be out, that sort of stuff." Baldelli said this possibility was on the team's radar for days, before they took action. "It wasn't a complete shock to us, despite the fact that it is disappointing," the manager said. "We knew that this was something that he was dealing with, going back to his start in [Sacramento]. It's something we were prepared for, and we were thinking about. So we've been assessing him over the past few days, to see what shape he's in, and then we got him looked at, got some imaging done. He's gonna be down at least for a little while." While Matthews struck an optimistic tone and Baldelli and other Twins officials were extremely circumspect, it doesn't sound like Matthews will be back at the end of the 15-day term for which he's required to be shelved. That he's shut down for the time being says that, in itself. Pitchers who have suffered shoulder strains, since the start of 2021, have averaged more than 10 weeks to return to action, and the median is right around eight weeks. The distribution of possibilities is wide with this injury, which is not especially specific. For instance, the teres major issues that Joe Ryan and López have battled can fall under the umbrella of shoulder strains, but so can more minor issues with smaller muscles that provide stability instead of power to the pitcher. It's possible Matthews returns before the end of the month, but more likely that he's not back until the All-Star break. Woods Richardson will get the first chance to replace Matthews, from the sound of things, but with both him and David Festa in a rotation that also features Bailey Ober's diminishing velocity and no longer has López at its head, there will be added pressure on the bullpen. Long man Travis Adams could make a short trip back to St. Paul after his next extended outing, to facilitate Woods Richardson's arrival. but he becomes an essential cog in the pen if the team ends up needing to lift starters earlier than has been their tendency or preference of late. "We're just gonna have to keep kind of moving, and bringing guys up and challenging guys the way we have, and we're gonna continue to operate like that," Baldelli said. "If we have to get creative with the rotation or the way that we're filling up some of these innings and winning games, then we'll do that." Ryan will be the first pitcher to take the mound in the knowledge that the team's rotation is under this much pressure. Baldelli said he hopes the newly minted Twins ace won't place undue pressure on himself. "I don't think that Joe Ryan has to do anything differently. I don't want him thinking about anything differently. I don't want him approaching his outings differently," the skipper said. "He's been pitching great. Why would he do anything more than what he's doing? All we want our guys to do is get ready for their start, go and give us a chance to win. That's it." That's all any one pitcher can do, of course, especially in the modern age. Even a top-tier starter can't generally spin a few complete games to help a tired bullpen stabilize. That's why, increasingly, the injuries to the rotation appear to threaten the viability of Jorge Alcala as the last man in the team's bullpen. How the team works around their latest setback is hard to say, but one thing is clear: the excess depth they might have hoped they had is turning out to be depth, but not excess. In fact, it might not even turn out to be enough. View full article

Image courtesy of © Ed Szczepanski-Imagn Images Box Score Starting Pitcher: Zebby Matthews - 5 IP, 4 H, 1 ER, 3 BB, 4 SO Home Runs: Harrison Bader (6), Ryan Jeffers (4) Top 3 WPA: Matthews (0.196), Bader (0.131), Griffin Jax (0.079) Win Probability Chart (via FanGraphs) On the surface, this looks like another easy win for Rocco Baldelli and the Twins. In some ways, it was. At the same time, viewing the day from a wide lens, it was a stern reminder that tough times still lie ahead for this team, which has already absorbed and survived considerable adversity. Call it a Zeb Gem No adversity here, at least. Zebby Matthews didn't have his best stuff, with his fastball down a tick and his control a hair off. All that did was provide a chance for him to prove (to himself, and to Twins fans) that he can win in the majors even without his 'A' game. Sitting around 95 mph but inducing just seven whiffs, Matthews nonetheless cruised through five innings of one-run ball. His arsenal is deep enough, now, that he can switch gears and make more adjustments within outings. He also had the luxury, Wednesday, of facing a team in total freefall. The rest of the night's pitching performances would prove that. Teres a Major Problem Looming Pablo López left his start Tuesday night with what the team initially believed to be a lat strain. As can often happen, though, further examination and imaging showed that the injury was actually a strain of his teres major muscle, a neighboring and similar back muscle and the one that ended Joe Ryan's season last summer. López has a Grade 2 strain, and while we'll get more details soon from injury guru @Lucas Seehafer PT, you can safely stash your Pablo Day jerseys until at least the other side of the trade deadline. That news cast a pall over the later innings of the game, for fans, as it broke on social media during the contest. Happily, the bullpen gave at least some consolation, with a rousing reminder of the potency of the pitching staff even without its ace. Four Twins relievers (Louis Varland, Griffin Jax, Brock Stewart and Jhoan Duran—the four horsemen) combined to allow two baserunners and strike out a gaudy 10 in the final four innings. Can the Twins survive without López? Sure. It just won't be easy. They'll need more nights at least somewhat like Wednesday from their pen, and despite its admirable depth and capacity for dominance, that's asking a lot. Making Up for Lost Time The pressure on the Twins offense is also a bit greater if López will be out for multiple months, as seems most likely. Fortunately, they have some hitters of whom it's still fair to expect some improvement. Harrison Bader was brought in for his glove, first and foremost, but his recent struggles at the plate were a disappointing follow-up to a tantalizing start to the season. He busted out with a long two-run home run Wednesday. Meanwhile, Ryan Jeffers cranked just his fourth homer of the campaign. While Jeffers has been adequate overall, the dearth of power production from him has been conspicuous and troublesome so far this year. If this is a sign of that tide turning, it's a very welcome development. Royce Lewis also reached twice in the contest, as he tries to climb out of the offensive chasm he's lived in for the last nine months. Missing from the lineup, however, was Carlos Correa, a late scratch. He'll sit on Thursday, too, as the Twins try to complete the four-game sweep. Correa felt his sore back flare up after slipping in the batter's box Tuesday. These (among other things) are the inconveniences and the real problems of playing big-league ball in a minor-league stadium. Take it as another reminder that the Twins have to be ready to plug a lot of holes and bail a lot of excess water as they row frantically toward the playoffs in the second half. What’s Next? At this point, success just means getting everyone onto that plane and back to Minnesota, without further injury. The series win (and a .500 road trip) is in the bag. A sweep (and a winning trip) would be lovely, though, and the Twins will ask David Festa to secure it for them. Festa is taking López's place in the rotation, and bumps back everyone else to provide an extra day of rest at the end of this grueling trip. The A's have tabbed Mitch Spence as the first hurler in what shapes up to be a bullpen game, beginning at 2:35 PM CT. Bullpen Usage SAT SUN MON TUE WED TOT Alcalá 28 0 0 28 0 56 Sands 6 0 0 25 0 31 Stewart 11 0 12 0 15 38 Jax 18 15 0 0 13 46 Varland 18 0 15 0 22 55 Topa 10 0 11 10 0 31 Durán 14 0 0 0 12 26 Funderburk 0 0 17 0 0 17 View full article

Image courtesy of © Neville E. Guard-Imagn Images The game was, in a hidden sort of way, very much on the line when Byron Buxton stepped to the plate for the fourth time against Luis Severino Monday night. Yes, the Twins led 6-4, but they'd been stuck on their tally since the second inning, when the Athletics had gifted them about half of their sextet of runs. Meanwhile, the home team had responded with four runs against Joe Ryan, and the Twins starter had narrowly escaped big trouble in the bottom of the fifth. Momentum was flowing the A's way, and Ryan (though not officially removed, yet) was done for the night. A Kody Clemens single, a Ty France double and a Christian Vázquez walk had loaded the bases, with the last event proving especially clearly that Severino was vulnerable. He'd taken the early punch in the mouth from the Twins and outboxed them for the following few rounds, but now, he was set to face the top of the order for the fourth time. To extend the analogy, he was very much on the ropes—but the round was nearly over, and the Twins were running out of time to land the knockout blow. Even one more run would be huge, and probably decisive, but there were two outs. Severino was just one good pitch from getting back to his corner, and the rest of the fight would be between fresher combatants. Buxton smelled that. He knew his opponent very well, by then, not only having seen Severino several times before but having gotten three previous looks at him in that game. He didn't have many pitches in his memory bank, because he'd quickly put the ball in play each of the three previous times up; Severino had only thrown him seven total pitches. In fact, but for a misplay in left field, Buxton would have gotten himself out all three times, in quick at-bats. He'd spent the night playing into Severino's hands. The big righty knew Buxton as one of the league's most extreme pull hitters, and he'd teased him with stuff that could only end in lousy contact if one tried to pull it. Broadly, the scouting report is still accurate. In fact, Buxton is pulling the ball as often as ever, and of 255 qualifying batters throughout the league, only seven have a higher pull rate than he does this year. Not this time, though. Severino went right back to his work, with teasing stuff moving away from the turn-and-burn burner. On 1-0, he reached back for 97 miles per hour, with a fastball on the outside corner. Buxton flipped the script, and brought the game to an early resolution. ZFh6bEtfWGw0TUFRPT1fVlZkWUJWVlNVd01BQUZSWEF3QUhWRlZmQUZrRlVWTUFBd05XVWdNTUIxRUhCQWRV.mp4 That's a great piece of hitting, but on its own, it wouldn't be worth this article. To understand why it's so valuable and meaningful, you have to fully contextualize what Buxton can do at the plate—and, historically, what he has not been able to do. That was Buxton's fourth truly opposite-field hit this season. He had about that many last year, including one that was struck about as sharply as this ball was. Want to see it? dzcwdzVfWGw0TUFRPT1fQXdKUVVWMVhWRlFBQ1ZFSFVnQUFBd2NGQUZsUlZnVUFCZ2NFQlFvTkNWVmNCRmRX.mp4 Sometimes, in the midst of an 11-0 blowout and when the only thing at stake is an arcane scrap of team pride, you just try something strange. Yes, Buxton hit that one ball hard to the opposite field for a hit. On the very rare other occasions on which he did come up with a wrong-way hit, though, they tended to look much more like this. OGdZNndfWGw0TUFRPT1fRGxOWFVGTldCUWNBWFFaV1VBQUFVd0JTQUFOVFYxUUFBbEFFQUFRRlZ3cFdCQVZY.mp4 You can see all the difference in the world, not even in the resulting batted ball, but in Buxton's body language—the story of his movements through the swing. He was trying to whip through this 2-0 sinker and pull it on a rising line to left-center. Instead, fooled by a pitch a bit farther out over the plate than he expected, his mishit it off the top/outside half of the bat. The result was a twisting blooper, and while he did turn that into a double, it's the very definition of a non-repeatable action. If what he needed and wanted to do in that moment was to hit the ball to right field with any authority, this would have been exactly the wrong way to do it. It's an outcome, but not a process that he could port into a clutch, runners-in-scoring-position type of situation. He didn't have that club in his bag at all, not just last year, but since becoming the style of hitter he is, back in 2019. This year, when he goes the other way, it's purposeful and repeatable. He's still dead-set on being a dead pull hitter most of the time, but in some cases, he anticipates what a pitcher intends to do or adjusts dramatically to suit a situation—and it works. You know how, in the NFL, teams often script their first 15 offensive plays, taking advantage of the information they have about the other team and the relative lack of situational game pressure to do a particular thing so they can operate an optimized version of their offense to suit their opponent? In a game against the Giants last month, Buxton put a scripted swing on the first pitch of the game. He had conviction in what he'd be thrown and where (something that gets vanishingly hard to guess once you get beyond the first handful of pitches of any game), and he knew his typical swing might not get him around on a Jordan Hicks fastball in time. This one, however, did just fine. NXkyNmVfV0ZRVkV3dEdEUT09X0JBSlRWZ0JWQXdBQUQxQlVVZ0FIQTFOUUFGa01CVmdBQzFVQUJGY0ZDQWRVQlZCWA==.mp4 A first-pitch swing is an ambush, and a first-pitch swing in the first inning is especially so. Pitchers are much more ready, and are calibrating their plan against you much more closely, Buxton isn't letting them really make this part of the book on him, though, and as long as the book says he's looking to pull everything, he can sneak in the occasional wrong-way slash. Here he is going with a 1-1 sinker to take advantage of runners being on in front of him, way back in the first week of April: MnJWanhfWGw0TUFRPT1fQUFSWFVsWUhWbFFBQUFaVUJBQUhCUVVGQUZnQ0FsSUFCQU1DQ1ZBR1ZBdGRCVkZW.mp4 And here he is getting a sinker much like the one he half-missed for a hustle double last year, only this time, he was planning on that offering. He's created a swing that can reliably generate hits that way, even for extra bases. d2VXcTNfWGw0TUFRPT1fQWxRREJWSUVBMU1BWGdZRFV3QUhDUUlDQUFBQVdsWUFBVmNFQ1FCWEExQlFVd1Jl.mp4 Buxton is still a pull hitter, who knows his home-run power is in left field and that that's the most valuable play in baseball. This season, though, he's evolved. He's using an opposite-field version of his swing to get the barrel on some balls he would have never turned into hits before—or at least, that he couldn't have turned into such reliable hits. And it's not just about the opposite field, itself. In the second half of 2023, when Buxton swung at pitches over the inner third of the plate, just 1.3% of those swings had an attack direction that was even or oriented toward the opposite field. Last season, that number climbed to 24.4%. This season, it's a whopping 39.4%. This is the swing baseball people call "inside-out", willing to stay behind the ball inside and work it back through the middle of the field. Buxton only had 35 tracked swings of that type before Opening Day. This season, he already has 28 of them—including another huge, clutch swing from this very road trip. YkI5eTRfWGw0TUFRPT1fVlZOUUFWSURWbGNBQ0FZQ1ZBQUhDUUlGQUZrQVYxa0FWMVVHQkFGVUExY0RDUUJY.mp4 That zone will never be where Buxton is most dangerous, but if he can make solid contact and use the middle of the field by staying behind the ball (dragging the barrel just enough that he's more likely to make squared-up contact) without sacrificing swing speed (his average bat speed on swings like these before 2025 was under 70 mph; this year, it's over 73), Buxton becomes a more multi-dimensional hitter—and yes, a more dangerous one in the clutch. Pitchers can't plan around this, because it's just one end of the spectrum toward which he can situationally push his swing. Under the instruction of Matt Borgschulte (whom Rocco Baldelli has praised for treating the big-league swing as a "living, breathing thing"), Buxton really does seem to have found more ways to subtly vary his swing and his mode of attack, without having to guess and switch between two distinct and rigid operations. Even at 31 years old, Buxton is pretty clearly the best all-around hitter he's ever been. There was an adjustment period early in the season, as (perhaps) he was adapting to Borgschulte's style and (for certain) he was dealing with the impending family tragedy that took him away from the team for two days in mid-April. Since he came back from that brief absence, though, Buxton is batting .301/.345/.579, with nine home runs, 16 total extra-base hits, eight stolen bases, 31 RBIs and a 1.06 WPA, all in 148 plate appearances. He's had a hot streak or two this torrid before, but he's never truly posed such a threat. Short of intentionally walking him, teams don't have a good way around him in a big spot. He occasionally expands the zone, but can hurt you even when he does—and if he doesn't, or if you make a mistake over the plate anyway, he can use the whole field to do whatever form of damage the situation demands. It's a huge step forward from the player he's been even at his previous best, and as long as he keeps making sound adjustments and stays healthy, the Twins have a championship-caliber all-purpose lineup centerpiece. View full article

Image courtesy of © Benny Sieu-Imagn Images Last month, I wrote—well, in fact, I wrote twice—about Pablo López moving from the first-base side of the pitching rubber to the middle of it. It's always interesting and valuable to know when pitchers make such moves, and López himself had a lot to say about why he was trying out the move at the time. It was about finding the best way to help his breaking balls play off his four-seam fastball, as they have become the secondary pitches on which he relies most to complement the heater. It also facilitated, in some small way, the development of his newfound kick-change, a second flavor of offspeed pitch for his ever-deepening arsenal. Just a few weeks after I chronicled López's changes, though, they were history—not forgotten, and perhaps not fully scrapped, but tabled, for the time being. Since his penultimate start of April, López has been on the move back to the first-base side, and is now settled back into a spot that is very comfortable, although not quite the spot from which he started this journey in the spring. He's not where he was in 2024, exactly, but where he most often was in 2023, when he enjoyed a career year. "I mean, that's what it was—it was an experiment. That's why spring training is beautiful. You get to try, you get to tinker, you get to experiment, without letting the results make you freak out or anything, or make you want to change your entire identity," López said Sunday, at Target Field. "So I tinkered with it. I saw flashes of what it could do for me, but then I also saw things that would, long-term, not just hurt me but hurt the team, like free passes, pitches leaking over the plate, taking away from [two-strike] execution with pitches going to my glove side. Because you have to keep in mind, like, six inches on the rubber can affect either the same amount or a little bit more, and that could be the difference between the barrel and the tip of the bat, or the tip of the bat and getting a whiff or things like that." A student of his craft, López is always on the lookout for edges he can exploit, and that drove him to make a change well-founded in modern pitching theory. But he also used each game as more feedback from which to learn, and that learning led him back toward the place where he'd begun. "So I pondered, and each time I pondered, I'd shift a little bit more, shift a little bit more, up to the point that I'm on the first-base side," he said. "But it's closer to where I was in 2023 than [where] I was in 2024. In 2023, it felt like my heel was at the edge of the rubber. In 2024, my heel was beyond the rubber. So I feel like I'm closer to where I was in 2023." Acknowledging that he was better in several regards (most notably, putting hitters away) in 2023, López finds some comfort in the realization that that season's setup offers him a path back to that level of success. He also learned more about how his pitches play from different angles during his experiment, and has implemented some of those tweaks since getting back to his 2023 foothold. View full article

Image courtesy of © Brad Rempel-Imagn Images Memorial Day weekend turned out very well for the Twins. They couldn't quite eke out a third win and complete a sweep of the division-rival Royals, but their back-to-back walkoff victories on Friday night and Saturday afternoon showed their mettle, their well-roundedness, and their slight but clear superiority to the visitors from Kansas City. At the heart of it all was Ty France, clutch hitter extraordinaire. France's two-run home run to win Friday night's game was arguably the high point of a Twins hot streak that has wholly inverted the narrative of their season. France didn't rest on the laurels that came with that homer for even a day, though. On Saturday, he had a crucial two-run, opposite-field single to facilitate an eventual comeback win, and on Sunday, he started the scoring by flipping a single into right-center field to score Ryan Jeffers in the first inning. Last fall, I documented the fact that hitters swing faster in the postseason. Big crowds and big situations will speed up the reflexes and the muscles. France knows how to avail himself of that natural speed boost: keep things slow. "As far as the big moments and the adrenaline kicking in, I was fortunate enough to play in the playoffs in [2022], and it's a real thing," he said Sunday. "The more you can slow your heart rate down in those moments, just be under control—I'm at a point in my career now where I've been in those situations a good bit, and I'm able to control my emotions." France emphasized the importance of staying under control, and resisting the temptation to get "carried away" when the hum of the game rises to more of a roar. He's a subject matter expert, in this regard. For his career, France is a .243/.316/.391 hitter with the bases empty. Put a runner in scoring position, and those numbers leap to .310/.377/.450. In low-leverage situations, he's batted .255/.323/.400. Crank it up to high leverage, and he's at .290/.368/.434. It's against old-fashioned sabermetric orthodoxy to suggest that a hitter can be consistently clutch, but with well over 500 plate appearances in both of the samples producing such impressive numbers, France is right that he's been in that spot too many times to dismiss his success there as meaningless. Over the decades, some wise voices have even questioned the nobility of being a clutch hitter. Way back in 1960, in his moving paean to Ted Williams after his final game in Fenway Park, author John Updike rebuked that archetype. "Insofar as the clutch hitter is not a sportswriter’s myth, he is a vulgarity," Updike wrote, "like a writer who writes only for money." There's truth in that sentiment. If a hitter isn't giving their full concentration or best effort until there's a chance to cash in for some RBIs or the glory that comes with hits in the heat of the spotlight, they're not serving their team. But Updike had an ax to grind—or, more to the point, an infamously non-clutch hitter to defend. More importantly, he overlooked the reasonable hypothesis that some hitters might be well-suited to the way pitches prefer to do their business when the chips are down—and less so to the way they'll be attacked at other, lower-pressure moments. "I think when I'm at my best, I'm covering that pitch away, hitting that fastball to the right side," France said, acknowledging that pitchers often feel more comfortable working in locations they perceive as less dangerous or vulnerable to power when the pressure rises. Twins manager Rocco Baldelli echoed that basic conception of the art of clutch hitting, at which the Twins seem to be excelling over this three-week run of torrid play. "I think guys are going up there with a good plan, more than anything else," the skipper said. "We’re not trying to beat the world with one swing. Ty had a big homer for us, but most of the time we’re doing it with just hitting the ball hard, spraying the ball around the field, trying to hit line drives. But we’re taking pitches, we’re putting ourselves in good positions to hit. That’s really what it’s all about. It doesn’t mean you’re always gonna have success, but it’s the only way you can have success, to have at-bats like that." None of this quite answers the question of how France came to hammer that game-winner Friday night, though. If he's focused on going the other way, which he's done so well, where did a pulled home run come from in that moment? It was, in truth, the confluence of having a good plan and the body going faster than it otherwise might. "[Royals relief ace Lucas Erceg] throws a sinker at 98, and guy on first, one out, my thought process is, 'Ok, he's gonna try and bury me in with a sinker, get a double play ball,'" France said. "So for me, it was, 'Ok, I need to get on time for 98, get the foot down, ready to hit.' 0-0, he hung a slider, but because I was on time for the fastball, I was able to see it, react, gave me some room to work with out front, and I was able to pull a slider for a homer." Sitting on a heater and getting a slider is, in general, a bad thing for a hitter. If that hitter is dedicated to the idea of taking that fastball to the opposite field, however, they have a chance to be early in a good way, rather than a bad one, when the breaking ball comes instead. The wrinkle—the big trick, here—is that the bat is going to be moving fast, no matter what. So the hitter has to be thinking clearly enough to stay in that mindset, to studiously focus on going the other way—to trust himself. France's average bat speed this season is 70.6 miles per hour. On that first pitch from Erceg, it was 74.0 mph. His average attack angle (the vertical angle of movement, relative to the ground, of the barrel of the bat at contact) is 11°. On this swing, it was 21°, which tells us he was a bit early. His average attack direction (the horizontal angle of movement of that same portion of the bat at the contact point) is 6° toward the opposite field; it was 8° to the pull field on the fateful pitch Friday night. He typically tilts his bat 35° downward as he moves it through the hitting zone, on pitches in that vertical location range. Friday night's swing was at 32°. Expecting the fastball, thus, a flatter swing. On time for the fastball, thus, early. But, because he'd been trying to go to right field with it, early in a good way. Clutch hitting isn't solved. France won't come through every time, as Baldelli noted. This remains a game of failure. As successes in pivotal moments pile up for France, though, it's hard not to both trust and admire the way he matches his skill set and his approach to situations—or even how situations simply compel pitchers to pitch right into his strengths. View full article

All but definitely. They'll still see how he feels tomorrow, but as close to a sure thing as it could be.