On June 30, Rocco Baldelli picked up a marker and absolved the Minnesota Twins of their sins. “Let the Season Begin…” he wrote on the whiteboard in the Baltimore Orioles’ visiting locker room. The season had begun on March 30, three months before the Twins landed in Baltimore. They were 40-42, leading the AL Central but hardly playing to their potential. But with one stroke of a black marker, he passed on a message that the coaches had said to one another in passing.
Baldelli had absolved Carlos Correa of his slow start and for grounding into double plays. He was allowing Byron Buxton to move on from his strikeouts, Max Kepler for his soft groundouts, and Christian Vázquez for hovering near the Mendoza line. But 48 hours before the Twins arrived in Maryland, Baldelli had let them have it. They had flailed away at pitches outside the zone, and the Atlanta Braves swept them.
Atlanta held the Twins to three runs in the three-game series. Minnesota’s lineup continued to waste great starts. The bullpen kept giving away leads. They weren’t creating separation in baseball’s weakest division. Baldelli closed the locker room to reporters. He was critical after the sweep.
There’s no way we can walk out of this with any positives. If I’m rolling that up and trying to portray it any other way, I’m lying. We have to make some really, really legitimate adjustments to what we’re doing right now if we’re going to go out there and compete and win games against that team or really any other team. I’m not really pleased right now with the effort [in] this series. The second half is here, but we have some work to do in this second half because we can’t play like this.
By offering a reset on the season in Baltimore after 82 games, he was saying that all was forgiven. What’s happened is in the past. There still were 80 games left to play. They’d play the Orioles in Maryland, then see them at Target Field the following week. Every team needs a reset at some point in the season. “Teams reset themselves all the time,” said Baldelli after sweeping the Kansas City Royals, two days before the Orioles arrived in Minneapolis. “Sometimes guys are aware of it. Sometimes they’re not, and it just kinda happens. But I think that kinda thing, when you play 162 ballgames, you’re gonna need some different resets.”
But the reset only lasted so long. The Twins scored eight runs in their first game in Baltimore, then two in the next two. They swept the Royals, one of the worst teams in baseball, but only scored five runs in three games against the O’s in Minneapolis. The Orioles swept Minnesota, and the Twins enter the break at 45-46. The Cleveland Guardians are a half-game above them in the standings. The Boston Red Sox are 48-43 and in last place in the AL East. The Twins lost their final game against Baltimore 15-2, even though Joe Ryan struck out eight of nine batters at one point. Still, Baldelli’s tone was markedly different than it was in Atlanta.
“I couldn’t believe in our team any more,” he said. “I don’t know any other way to say that. That’s pretty straightforward. We have a lot of not just ability, but character and leadership and all the things we want as a staff, as a manager, that you have in a roster, we have it. So we should go out there and win.”
In many ways, the Twins are wasting an opportunity to run away with the division. Their pitching has been phenomenal. But they need more from Correa, Buxton, and many of their hitters. Joey Gallo is giving away too many at-bats. Even with some positive developments, the lineup isn’t generating enough offense. Royce Lewis and Alex Kirilloff are living up to their prospect status and delivering at the plate. Willi Castro is exceeding expectations as a non-roster Spring Training invite. And Edouard Julien is producing at the top of the lineup. But they still have the 25th offense in the league.
However, Baldelli won’t let the 15-2 loss linger over the All-Star Break.
We squeezed a lot of rough play out of the tube on the last day before the break. The only way to handle a break for any one of these guys or for myself or anyone part of the game is to try to — you decompress, you take a few deep breaths. It might be the best thing for some of our guys in the clubhouse who need it right now. We definitely grinded through the first half in a lot of ways. We’re sitting here right around .500, playing .500 ball for the half. Nothing easy or smooth about it, but that’s part of our game. We put ourselves in a position where we can still go out there, play some good baseball, [and] accomplish everything we want to accomplish.
Baldelli has absolved the Twins of their sins. But will they distance themselves from their transgressions? They’re a .500 team that’s still in contention for the division. The most challenging part of their schedule is behind them. The season begins on July 14 in Oakland.
