As the Minnesota Twins progressed closer to vanquishing their big-market bogeyman, absurd stats echoed from the Yankee Stadium walls. What they had to say was borderline insulting. You haven’t won a series here since 2014. You haven’t had a four-game sweep in the Bronx since 1991. And you last won a playoff game here in 2004, the last time you ever won in the postseason.
The Yankees built their stadium more like a coliseum than a baseball park. It feels designed to swallow up mid-market teams from the upper Midwest. The bright lights above the park have fried many of Minnesota’s best players like sunlight in a magnifying glass. The right field wall seems to creep forward whenever a New York batter hits a pop fly in its direction. Yankee Stadium has become a haunted mansion for the Twins. Still, they stayed the night this year and lived to tell the tale.
A series win would have felt different. The Twins took two of three from the Houston Astros and Chicago White Sox before flying out to Gotham. It almost feels like a technicality that Minnesota can’t check the Yankees box off. After all, they won two of three in the Bronx – then lost the pitcher’s duel between Gerrit Cole and Pablo López. It’s also kind of discerning that the umpires allowed Domingo German to pitch with enough stickup on his fingers to scale the Empire State Building with his bare hands. But such is life. “Wash it off” doesn’t apply to pinkies. Everyone knows that.
Ultimately, the Twins ceded six runs in Game 3 and couldn’t chase Cole from Game 4. They ship out to Fenway, where they should take the series from a .500 Boston Red Sox team. Then they’ll get an opportunity to try to win the Yankees series at home. Unfortunately, they won’t get to play New York closer to October because there is only so much they can do to convince an exhausted fanbase that this team is good in April.
For all that went wrong in the final two games at Yankee Stadium, a lot went right. They threw up the bat signal, and Carlos Correa delivered. Joe Ryan struggled against non-AL Central opponents last year but was California Cool in his start. López pitched like an ace, then immediately signed a four-year, $73.5 million extension. López’s contract is the richest contract for a pitcher in franchise history. Correa signed a $200 million contract this offseason, Minnesota’s largest signing, period.
The Twins took a series from the defending champs, their biggest rival, and are spending money? It feels like they’re operating in an alternate universe. However, splitting a series against the Yankees was a reality check. They’re still the Twins, just with different stripes. An April series win over in New York doesn’t mean they’ll win there in October; they could sweep the Yankees at Target Field and still leave the postseason empty-handed. But this year’s team is building a case that they’re different, and we should acknowledge that.
The Bomba Squad awakened a dormant fanbase after years of mediocrity had lulled them to sleep. But there was a veneer of uncertainty that clouded their success. MLB juiced the balls that year; 20-home run hitters are putting up video game numbers. It was a fun, memorable season that ended familiarly. Again, the Yankees swept them out of the playoffs. Again, their postseason losing streak endured.
The pandemic kept fans out of the park and limited the season to 60 games. Houston swept them in two. Minnesota’s last successful season was over before anyone could fully engage with it. The Twins entered 2021 with World Series aspirations, but they greeted the fans who returned to the park with a 73-win season. Last year, they led the AL Central for most of the year but fell apart at the end and only won 78 games.
It’s easy to carry the baggage from past Twins failures into this season. But Minnesota appears to be learning from its shortcomings. They hired Nick Paparesta away from the Oakland A’s after many of their best players got hurt last year. The Twins used a series of trades to build a solid rotation. And they had so much depth that they started Bailey Ober and Edouard Julien in the minors.
Payroll and star power alone don’t win championships. The Los Angeles Angels are living proof of that. A combination of spending, savvy, and player development creates a contender. The Twins still have much to prove. But retaining Correa, extending Byron Buxton, and trading for López is a good start. So is taking series from the Astros and White Sox and leaving New York with a split. Unfortunately, they couldn’t have won three, though, because there’s something familiar about this team being close but not quite there.
