MILWAUKEE, Wis. — The Minnesota Twins have found some pretty agonizing ways to lose games this season, but not many were as creative as suffering a walk-off walk like what happened at Miller Park on Monday night.
As a result, the Twins fell to 11 games below .500 — a season-worst mark — and it has led to national pundits starting to stir the pot as far as rumors of when the team might start selling off parts to its active roster.
In fact, ironically enough, Jon Heyman was in the clubhouse prior to Tuesday’s game, almost like he was circling the team like a vulture might when it’s looking for its prey.
The Twins aren’t completely dead in the water yet, but it’s not looking good. The team’s projected playoff odds are just 1.2 percent according to Fangraphs and a scant 0.8 percent according to Baseball Prospectus. In short, the Twins are more or less hanging on not because of how they’ve played, but because Cleveland — which entered Tuesday 46-37 — has failed to completely take off with the division.
It’s not as though the clubhouse is unaware of this, manager Paul Molitor said prior to Tuesday’s game.
“Not extensively,” Molitor said when asked how much he’s thought about how the roster could look in the next month. “Everyone kind of understands this is where we’re at, and the time of year we’re approaching. Some of these things are going to pick up in terms of rumors or things that could potentially happen.
“We have a lot of people who fall into those categories where names might be discussed. I’m not going to get too far ahead of that, but just see where the day-to-day takes us.”
But no matter how the Twins complete the series in Milwaukee, it sure seems like the next homestand could make or break how the Twins proceed for the rest of the season.
Well, at least in the sense of breaking it.
So why is that?
The Twins return home after the July 4 holiday to take on the Baltimore Orioles, Kansas City Royals and Tampa Bay Rays on an 11-game homestand. The Rays have been plucky this season — as they showed against the Twins at Tropicana Field earlier this season — as they’re hanging around with a 42-42 record entering play on Tuesday.
But if you haven’t kept up with the Royals or Orioles, you’re not missing much. They have a combined 49 wins.
The Red Sox (57), Astros (55), Mariners (54), Yankees (54) and Braves (49) have that many wins on their own.
The Twins are going to head into the upcoming homestand somewhere between nine and 13 games under .500 — pending the next two days in Milwaukee — but it seems fair to say that if the Twins don’t win at least five of the seven games against the Orioles and Royals, it simply isn’t happening for them this year.
Those teams are a combined 49 games under .500 this season.
Even sweeping the seven games against the Orioles and Royals — a tall task, to be sure — won’t get the Twins back to .500, so it seems foolish to suggest that even that run of strong baseball could put the team back on the radar.
So again, we have to focus on the potential downside.
Sort of feels emblematic to how the season has gone, doesn’t it?
But at the very least, Twins fans should have some closure to what direction the season is going by the All-Star break, if not sooner.
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Briefly
- Jay Jaffe wrote a good summation of how the Twins season has gone to this point — read: poorly — for Fangraphs which went up on Tuesday. Check that out here.
- Ben Lindbergh penned what is more or less a love letter to Twins rookie Willians Astudillo for The Ringer on Tuesday. A certain tall, dark — farmer’s tan — and handsome Twins reporter was quoted therein. Check that out here.
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