Chances to turn the season around are diminishing.
After a morale-boosting series win against the New York Mets, the Minnesota Twins got swept by the Atlanta Braves to make sure Twins fans could once again lose hope.
It was a poor showing from the start in today’s game, with Joe Ryan surrendering a two-run homer to Matt Olson in the first inning, the first of three homers allowed for Ryan. The Twins’ starter gave up three more hits in the second, two in the third, and a hit and HBP in the fifth. When it was all said and done, Ryan lasted five innings but gave up eight hits and six runs on top of the three bombs.
Louie Varland, Jhoan Duran, and Danny Coulombe each closed threw perfect innings to close out the game, but unfortunately the game was already out of reach for the Twins’ inept offense.
The Twins only had five hits on the day, with only two going for extra bases, courtesy of Byron Buxton. The Twins did manage to load the bases in the fourth inning, but a Luke Keaschall infield fly and Brooks Lee hard-hit fly out ended the threat, though a run came in on a wild pitch. They had runners in scoring position with less than two outs in the third, fourth, and fifth inning, but that wild pitch was the only run that came in from those squandered opportunities.
There’s truly not much else to say about this game without looking toward the bigger picture. Below, you can see the worst record for division winners through 25 games. The Twins are 7-15 through their first 22, and will likely be in the 9-16 category after their next three against the Chicago White Sox. Either the Twins are going to have one of the best turnarounds in MLB history or they’re just bad. The 2006 Twins show anything is possible, especially in a weak division, but the playoff window may be closing before the Twins have a chance to get healthy.
Courtesy of MLB.com
The Good News™️ is that the Twins have the aforementioned White Sox and Anaheim Angels of Los Angeles visiting this week. Fangraphs still gives the Twins a 31.2% chance to make the playoffs (hilariously just .1% behind the 11-9 Cleveland Guardians), but that obviously changes if the Twins continue on this pace and turn in trade deadline sellers. If the Twins can’t go at least 4-2 this week, it may be time to start looking toward the future.
Including a new ownership group. Please. Save me, anonymous baseball billionaire.
STUDS
- Byron Buxton: 2-5, HR, 2B
- Luke Keaschall: 1-3, BB, generally looking alive and happy to play baseball (a true win for this offense at the moment)
- Varland/Duran/Coulombe: 3 perfect innings on a grand total of 25 combined pitches
DUDS
- Joe Ryan: 5 IP, 8 H, 6 ER, 5 K, 3 HR allowed
- Edouard Julien: 0-5, 2 K
- Brooks Lee: 0-4, 2 K
- The entire team: 0-7 with RISP, 9 left on base
Everyone forget about this team for a few hours and enjoy Easter dinner with your families.