MINNEAPOLIS — Even returning home for a series against the last-place Miami Marlins, with usually dependable veteran starter Bailey Ober on the mound Tuesday night, couldn’t halt the Minnesota Twins’ collapse.
Ober allowed four runs in the second inning to mute whatever enthusiasm remained in a sparse Target Field crowd. And the Twins’ lineup barely put up a fight against the National League’s second-worst pitching staff in a 4-1 loss, scoring four runs or fewer for the 21st time in 25 games. It was just the second time in 27 games the Marlins allowed fewer than three runs.
A whale of a homer from Jonah 💥#MarlinsBeisbol pic.twitter.com/R2BidEOL2c
— Miami Marlins (@Marlins) September 24, 2024
“Execution” was the postgame sticking point for manager Rocco Baldelli, who repeatedly said the Twins’ approach at the plate and ability to follow the coaching staff’s game plans have been lacking.
“I think we do a pretty good job preparing guys and sending them into the game with the right idea,” Baldelli said. “You have to know what you are trying to accomplish. It’s not just ‘hit the ball.’ It’s a lot more than that. We have some of our guys that do a really good job of bringing a plan into the game and executing it. That’s really what a lot of it comes down to.”
During this six-week nosedive, the Twins’ lineup ranks 27th in walk rate, 28th in OPS and 27th in runs per game out of 30 teams.
“Now it’s (about) coming together with what we’re preparing to do before the game and syncing it up in the game and having what comes down to productive at-bats,” Baldelli said. “Productive at-bats are swinging at good pitches. For much of this period of time, we’ve failed to do that. We actually just swung. We were just swinging at a lot of pitches that you can’t hit.”
Carlos Correa, who went 2-for-5 with a double Tuesday and has a .429 on-base percentage in eight games since coming off the injured list last week, was even more blunt in his postgame assessment of the lineup’s woes.
“Some guys take it as poison and some guys take it as fuel,” Correa said. “The guys who take it as fuel are the ones that always come out on top and have a beautiful career and stay in the game for a long time. We have a lot of young guys and a lot of people try to help them, but at the end of the day, everybody has to figure it out on their own.”
Correa predictably avoided pointing to any specific player’s struggles, but several of the Twins’ most prominent young hitters have posted a sub-.600 OPS since mid-August, including Jose Miranda (.512), Royce Lewis (.539) and Edouard Julien (.593). That trio has combined for 71 strikeouts and 13 walks during that stretch, totaling just two homers and six double plays.
“There’s got to be a sense of urgency in terms of showing up earlier and getting the work in, trying to find something that can help us,” Correa said.
Has he felt that sense of urgency?
“Some guys, yeah,” Correa said. “Some of us hit extra (Tuesday) and tried to figure something out. We didn’t get the win, but we’ve got to do more of that and eventually find something right away so we can go out there and put up more runs.”
Minnesota spent every day in playoff position from May 3 through Aug. 17, when the Twins had a 70-53 record with postseason odds above 95 percent. Since then, the Twins are 11-23 (.324), playing at the equivalent of a 110-loss pace for six weeks, and their window to salvage this season by stumbling into October as a wild-card team is closing rapidly.
Tuesday’s loss, combined with wins by the Detroit Tigers and Kansas City Royals, puts the Twins two games out of both the No. 2 and No. 3 wild-card spots with five games to play. They hold the head-to-head tiebreakers over both teams, which has served as something of a safety net during this slide, but the Twins have been so bad for so long that it might not even matter.
Realistically, the Twins likely have to win at least four of the remaining five games. Normally, that would seem plausible for a home team facing the 99-loss Marlins and a playoff-bound Baltimore Orioles club that might not have much at stake this weekend. However, the Twins haven’t won four times in a five-game span since Aug. 13-17, the day before this whole mess started.
Max Kepler’s time with Twins likely over
We might have already seen the end of Max Kepler’s career with the Twins, which began in 2009 as a 16-year-old international signing from Germany and has spanned 10 seasons in the majors.
Out since Sept. 2 with patellar tendinitis in his left knee, in addition to more recent hip and groin discomfort, Kepler is not expected to return before the regular season ends Sunday afternoon. And the 31-year-old impending free agent’s availability for a potential playoff run is also unlikely
Kepler took live batting practice Monday versus Chris Paddack, who is also trying to work his way back from a midseason forearm strain. But whereas Paddack was somewhat optimistic Tuesday about possibly making a final-weekend bullpen appearance, Kepler seemed more resigned to his season — and likely his Twins career — being over barring a deep playoff run.
“With very crucial games to finish the season, I think we want the guys on the field that have all of the health and everything to give,” Kepler said. “As opposed to, I’d say, a horse who is a little banged up and maybe not going to be tip-top right out of the gate. I think we have guys on the team that have all of the capability and also the health, which is very important right now.”
Sweet pregame interview moment, as Max Kepler told Jorge Polanco how much it means to make a playoff run with him after more than a decade together in the Twins organization.
They were roommates after signing with the Twins as 16-year-olds in the 2009 international class. pic.twitter.com/qVWw7Wqyho
— Aaron Gleeman (@AaronGleeman) October 8, 2023
Kepler was struggling months before going on the IL, batting .235/.276/.323 with four homers in 70 games since late May, and fellow left-handed-hitting outfielders Matt Wallner and Trevor Larnach have outplayed him. Larnach, however, isn’t a healthy “horse” either, to use Kepler’s analogy, dealing with toe and hamstring injuries. Wallner left Tuesday’s game with an oblique injury.
“I’d like to feel great (before returning),” Kepler said. “I think the hip is the origin of all the issues. Everything, I think, kind of overcompensated. Once one thing goes, the rest of the body kind of slowly falls apart after a while.”
Kepler received multiple cortisone injections and noted he hasn’t ruled out needing offseason surgery, which would be unfortunate timing ahead of his first free agency. Kepler is making $10 million in the final year of a contract extension signed in 2019, but his market could be limited after batting just .253/.302/.380 with eight homers and a career-worst 90 OPS+ in 105 games.
“They opened the door for me and I owe them a lot,” Kepler said. “I could have shut it down completely and said, ‘Hey, let’s do what’s necessary here for moving forward, and my health.’ I thought cortisone shots would help, just to see if I can push out some more of my ability, but at this moment, in all honesty, I think the guys on the roster have a better shot than me.”
In addition to the 26-year-old Wallner and 27-year-old Larnach, the Twins have 21-year-old consensus top-50 prospect Emmanuel Rodriguez, another left-handed-hitting outfielder who finished the season at Triple-A St. Paul. All of which makes them highly unlikely to re-sign Kepler, who ranks 12th in homers (161) and 16th in games (1,072) in Twins history.
“It’s not the way I’d like to go out as a Twin, but then again, s— happens,” Kepler said. “I’m proud of myself for what I’ve done as an individual, as a teammate, as a friend to everyone in this clubhouse. I obviously want to go out on a higher note, but if I look at, what, 15 years of my life, half my life as a Twin, I don’t think I could have done much more as a kid from Berlin.”
(Photo of Bailey Ober: Stephen Maturen / Getty Images)
