All is well that ends well, but a historic end to the season where the Minnesota Twins won their first playoff game since 2004 and series since 2002 may have created amnesia along the way. Few will remember Minnesota’s ten-game homestand in June when they swept the Milwaukee Brewers, lost three of four to the Detroit Tigers, and split a series with the Boston Red Sox.
The Twins took two of three from Detroit on their following road trip. But the Atlanta Braves swept them. Joe Ryan injured his groin in one of the outings, an injury that he hid until August. Baldelli held a closed-door meeting after Atlanta swept the Twins and gave them a fresh start in Baltimore. That road trip was a little more memorable.
Still, the previous tumultuous homestand may have broken their season. Baldelli got into a dugout argument with Sonny Gray, and the umps threw him out of a game. Jorge López went on the mental health injured list, and Michael A. Taylor got hit in the back of the head with a pitch. Baldelli admitted that it was an emotional homestand after it concluded.
Yeah, I actually have felt that. You know, we win in some extraordinary fashions early on. We played some good baseball to start the homestand, then we went into a funk for the middle part of the homestand…. We come out [Wednesday], and we won another emotional type of game, a hard-fought, walk-off win against a team that’s playing good. You get to the last game, and it’s like, well, how’s this thing gonna end? None of us know.
Baldelli navigated the perils of an uneven season, keeping the Twins atop the AL Central for most of the year. They rarely looked dominant throughout the 87-win season but peaked in the playoffs. Minnesota swept the Toronto Blue Jays in the first round and stole home-field advantage from the Houston Astros in Game 2 before succumbing to the defending champs at Target Field.
But it could have been a lost season if Baldelli hadn’t kept things steady. He had help from veteran leaders like Gray, Carlos Correa, and Byron Buxton. Still, a manager must keep players from getting too down on themselves during a slump or losing streak. Similarly, he can’t let them read too much into a hot streak.
Even-keeled is the best approach for most teams, but it’s difficult to achieve. Each player requires a different approach and players’ needs change. “It’s always different,” he said. “And it’s not even the same for each particular player year after year. It’s always gonna be different.
Baldelli doesn’t give epic speeches like he’s in a Hollywood film. Sometimes he wants to address the entire team, but he often talks to players individually. “There’s a lot of direct conversations, and there’s a lot of times you’re talking about other things, not baseball-related, and you’re doing that for a reason, too. There’s a lot of different approaches, and you need a lot of bridges. You really do.”
The Twins lowered their payroll this season and lost Gray, but they believe they can still build off their playoff run last year. They have Pablo López at the top of their rotation, one of the major league’s best bullpens, and Correa, Buxton, and Royce Lewis coming off healthy offseasons. However, Minnesota has to endure difficult stretches with aplomb like they did in June last year. And Baldelli knows that keeping things at equilibrium starts with his ability to get through to players.
I am always trying to do a better job of that because I don’t think that’s something that you can ever really totally master or have a hold of. Because you have to wear many hats when you’re talking with guys over the course of the season. You’re treating them not just as players, you have to treat them as people, and as we know, everyone’s gonna need something else, something different.
The Twins will spend ample time coaching their players in the batting cages and bullpens perfecting their technique. They have countless fielding drills to build muscle memory for difficult plays. But Baldelli feels his job is as much about managing the mental side as the physical aspect of the game. Often, the mental aspect is more important.
We spend a lot of time perfecting physical skills, and we have conversations, but we don’t spend a lot of time perfecting how to approach situations and how to get the most out of yourself. So I think a lot of it is the ability to change your mindset and your way of thinking and focusing, very importantly, focusing on situations.
There are people that can actually help you do that. Not every person that helps you do that has to be a baseball coach or a baseball player, and I think having those other resources around here and taking advantage of those people is important.
Focusing on a random homestretch in June last year seems trivial in February. But the Twins were 38-38 after those ten games, vying with the Cleveland Guardians for the AL Central. Suppose Minnesota had allowed that strange homestand and the challenging road trip that followed turned into a vicious cycle. Then they would have relinquished the division and missed the playoffs, and things would feel a lot different right now.
