Minneapolis – Every team that goes on a winning streak inevitably faces regression. The Minnesota Twins have been 9-13 since their 13-game streak ended on May 17. Even more concerning? They’ve lost four of their last five, and three have been at Target Field.
The Twins continued to reel on Tuesday night. They opened a three-game series with a 16-4 loss to the Texas Rangers, who had the American League’s worst slash line going into Tuesday night’s game, hitting .221/.283/.356 and a .639 OPS. However, Rocco Baldelli didn’t read too much into those numbers.
“You can talk about what a team’s done to this point, but I don’t think that that’s actually as important as looking at the players on the field and what they’re capable of,” Baldelli said before the game. “Because yeah, they haven’t swung it this year so far, but if you look at their lineup, it’s a very dangerous lineup.”
The Rangers’ 6 through 9 hitters, Evan Carter, Josh Jung, Adolis Garcia, and Kyle Higashioka, combined to go 9-for-19 (.473 batting average) with 14 of the 16 runs batted in. Wednesday’s game was “a combination of everything,” not working, Simeon Woods Richardson said after he gave up six earned runs in 4 ⅔ innings.
“They made some good at-bats with them, they hit some pitches out of the zone,” Woods Richardson said. “They’re major league hitters – they get paid to do that. They put together some good at-bats, but I was trying to compete, trying to attack. I know I had two outs, I was trying to get out of the inning.”
Woods Richardson made his first start with the Twins since May 14, after the Twins optioned him to Triple-A. They had asked him to work on his splitter to get through opposing teams’ lineups a third time. He had a couple of hiccups against the Rangers hitters his first time through their order, allowing a single and a walk.
However, things unraveled for him in the top of the fourth when what could have been an incredible catch by Byron Buxton in center field turned into a fielding error. After his misplay, the game turned heavily in the Rangers’ favor.
“You can’t control that,” said Woods Richardson. “I also didn’t do my part as well. I didn’t throw as many strikes, it didn’t help them, so I think it was a combination of everything. There’s gonna be days like that, but I guess I felt fine, did the best I could, tried to string it together and try to compete the best I could.”
By the end of his start, Woods Richardson had thrown 98 pitches to get through 4 ⅔ innings, with only 53 landing in the strike zone. He allowed three walks, seven hits, and struck out four. Baldelli allowed him to get out of a jam in the top of the fifth, but he gave up three straight hits and exited the game.
“I wanted to give him an opportunity to pitch through it,” said Baldelli. “There will be other times where we do the same. We were down 3-2 at the time before it got broken open. It was a good time to stretch him a little bit and let him pitch. We haven’t done that a ton with him, and I think it’s something that is good.”
While it’s easier to focus on what went wrong for Minnesota on all ends of the ball Tuesday night, Baldelli walked away from the game believing the Twins took good at-bats against Tyler Mahle, their former teammate. They tagged him for 10 hits in 5 ⅔ innings. Still, it’s hard for that to be the focus when the story of the game was losing 16-4.
“There were a lot of good things up and down the lineup that you could talk about,” Baldelli said. “Didn’t matter a ton because the game got away from us. So you end up forgetting about the good at-bats, but there’s a lot of different scenarios where we pitch better, we play better behind our pitchers, and we’re sitting there in a ball game.”
The Rangers’ lineup was more than due. After giving up 16 hits and 16 runs to Texas, the Twins’ opponents have outscored them 44-21 in the last five games. That includes two blowout losses, where Twins third baseman Jonah Bride made his first two career appearances on the mound.
Fortunately, the 1-4 stretch has not put them out of AL Wild Card contention. The Twins have dropped from the top wild-card spot in the AL to the third, and there’s no good time for a team to have two blowout losses in five games. Still, bad losses feel different in early June rather than in August or September.
Still, the team will not soon forget the loss. However, the Twins won’t linger on it because they still have two games left to play against the Rangers. Minnesota hopes the good at-bats carry over to the next two games and that it gets better pitching.
“We can play better than what we showed out there today on all sides of the ball,” said Baldelli. “I think guys will probably be motivated showing up tomorrow just to go out there and play a good ballgame.”
