Minneapolis – The Minnesota Twins have been a streaky team this year. They started the season 11-7, then went 5-21, 10-5, 7-12, and are now riding a five-game winning streak.
Dividing their 79 games into five parts shows just how streaky this team has been this year. Fortunately, the Twins appear to be turning things around. Their lineup has a .285/.347/.494 slash line, with 33 home runs and an American League-leading 113 runs in June.
As a result, they have a +3 run differential through 19 June games. The pitching staff has needed the offense to pick them up this month. They own a 5.59 ERA, 1.49 WHIP, and .264 opponents’ average.
As the Twins return home for a three-game series against baseball’s best team, the Los Angeles Dodgers, they’ll need everything to beat the two-time defending World Series champs.
“We’ve been swinging the bats really well offensively, and obviously, the Dodgers are a powerhouse offensively with what they’re running out there,” said Twins manager Derek Shelton. “We have to, on the pitching side, go out and execute pitches, because we know they’re going to score runs. We know they’re going to put the ball in play. They’re going to do things, so we just have to execute pitches.”
The Twins have gotten some help back on the pitching side. They activated Kendry Rojas off the IL on Sunday after only one rehab outing with the St. Paul Saints. In that outing, Rojas allowed five runs on five hits and a walk in just 1 ⅓ innings. It’s not the results you’d hope for in any pitcher’s rehab outing. Still, Rojas can at least provide long relief depth and piggyback off openers.
However, the Twins will likely be without a traditional fifth starter for a while. Bailey Ober is still progressing back from his right forearm strain, and he will throw another bullpen on Tuesday. Mick Abel got an MRI on Monday afternoon, but the Twins didn’t have the results before first pitch on Monday night.
Still, even as the Twins shuffle the pitching staff around as they await one of their injured starters to return with a clean bill of health, they have been fun to watch from afar.
Ryan Jeffers has had to adjust to life on the IL, watching the team from his couch rather than behind the plate on road trips. Even though he has missed being part of the lineup every day, he’s enjoyed the production he’s seen consistently out of the lineup.
“It’s definitely a different perspective, but I think you see… I think it’s almost easier to see the approaches of the offense, specifically,” Jeffers said.
“See how good the guys are continuing to hand the baton and moving the line. Bases loaded might mean someone might take a walk, versus going up there and trying to hit a home run every time. I think it’s cool to see the approach from that perspective. I do find myself screaming at my TV sometimes like a normal baseball fan would be.”
Entering Monday night’s game against the Dodgers, the Twins are only three games below .500 at 38-41 and one game out of the final AL Wild Card spot. The Twins will officially reach the halfway mark of the 2026 season after they play their 81st game against Los Angeles on Wednesday night.
There’s reason to believe that there’s a chance the team can make a run at one of the wild card spots. Even with the possibility of making the playoffs within reach with half the season left, the Twins clubhouse isn’t looking at the standings every day.
Most MLB teams don’t worry about that until the trade deadline, and it’s usually within their own division. For Shelton, the team needs to focus on consistency in their game right now, and once that happens, they can start looking at the scoreboard more often.
“There’s a lot of baseball to be played, and the thing I’d like to get to our group is we need to play as consistent as possible,” said Shelton. “Because we haven’t. We’ve played really well in stretches. We haven’t played great in stretches. And it’s not like we actually haven’t played great. We just haven’t won games. So the consistency aspect is the thing I’m most focused on.”
