Victor Robles laid down a bunt with a man on first, and the Minnesota Twins leading the Washington Nationals 2-1 in the fifth inning. Robles’ bunt spun in the dirt next to the plate and stuck right in front of it. Ryan Jeffers picked the ball up barehand, did a 360, and tossed it to second. Correa caught it and threw to first in one motion, easily beating Robles.
Behold, the 2-6-3 double-play!
“It’s something I dream about at night,” Rocco Baldelli said in jest. “We do spend time on those plays. That’s not the first time that play’s been made this year in a game. You don’t see it very often, but when Jayce [Tingler] is leading all of our drills, and we’ve made that play many, many times. The spin move on top of it added a level of difficulty, but just as impressive. As long as we make the outs, it’s all that really matters, and we were able to do that.”
The Twins beat Washington, 3-1, preventing the sweep. Minnesota had taken two of four games from the New York Yankees on the road before facing the Nationals. But they lost the final two games in the Bronx. Then they lost two of three in Fenway Park before losing their first two games at home against the Nats. That means they had lost six of seven games before Sunday’s 3-1 win.
Minnesota had taken series from the defending champion Houston Astros and the Chicago White Sox before winning the first two games in New York. But they spiraled after losing 6-1 in Game 3. They couldn’t generate offense against Gerrit Cole, then lost two games to a .500 Red Sox team. In Game 1, Jovani Moran blew the save in extra innings. And Emilio Pagán gave up six runs in relief of an injured Kenta Maeda in the third game.
It’s early in the season, so it’s hard to know exactly how good the Twins are right now. But the signs were pretty good that they had something good. There’s nothing they can do in April to convince people they’ll win in October. Still, they were doing as much as possible to show that they were ready to break out of two seasons of doldrums. Minnesota probably should have won the series in Fenway. But young pitchers occasionally blow leads in critical situations, and Maeda got injured.
However, it’s harder to buy into their early success when they struggle against a Washington team that may lose 100 games this year. The much-improved Griffin Jax blew the lead in Game 1. The Nats tagged Minnesota’s newly-minted $73 million man, Pablo López, for five runs in Game 2. They looked like a team caught in a vicious spiral. When something could go wrong, it did. Misfortune felt inevitable. The two wins in the Bronx felt like eons ago.
The Twins didn’t win the final game against Washington because of Jeffers’ double-play. But it was a beautiful synergy of skill and looseness. It’s the kind of play that flops when a team is in a vicious cycle. Jeffers fails to pick up the ball, or he throws it into the outfield. Maybe Correa doesn’t catch it cleanly, fails to touch second, or throws it into the right-field stands. It’s the kind of play where the team’s ethos manifests. It felt like a minor turning point in a season that had suddenly grown a little sour.
“That was nice,” Bailey Ober, who made his first start of the season, said of Jeffers’ play. “I was not expecting that. I thought the ball was foul, to begin with. And then it just kinda settled right in front of the plate, and I had to get out of the way really fast for him to get it down to second.”
Ober pitched well enough in Spring Training to make the Opening Day roster, but Minnesota already had their starting five set. Depth is a sign of a roster with championship aspirations. Veterans don’t sign with losers. The best teams develop enough players to fill out the 40-man roster – not just the 26 who are active. The Twins can be special this year if they can dig themselves out of ruts. They passed the first test.
The next one? They’ve got the Yankees at Target Field. If New York sweeps them, forget I said anything. But if they can take this series from the Bombers, it means they can twist their way out of a vicious cycle.
