There has been nothing straightforward about this Minnesota Twins season. Getting off to a 7-13 start before ripping off a 12-game winning streak, inconsistency has been the only consistent theme.
Tuesday, they entered their game vs the Washington Nationals on the verge of falling back to .500, after losing seven straight, a streak that called for a ‘players only’ meeting the night before.
Minnesota Twins players only meeting saves the rally sausage
Success is never guaranteed after these ‘come to Jesus’ meetings, but this time around it acted as the rain dance Minnesota needed, producing an 11-0 victory that ended an exhaustive offensive drought.
Byron Buxton hit two bombs, Jose Miranda had three RBI, Carlos Santana had two hits, Willi Castro had two RBI and scored two runs. The offense was clicking on all cylinders, which has been a rare occurrence, of late.
Rocco Baldelli likely thought his club had turned a page when they beat up on the Chicago White Sox, Los Angeles Angels, and Boston Red Sox en route to 12 straight wins. Unfortunately the truest version of kryptonite came to Target Field in the form of the New York Yankees, and Minnesota hasn’t won since.
Dropping three to the Bronx Bombers was followed by a sweep at the hands of the division leading Cleveland Guardians. Then, after losing their first of this series vs Washington, the players only meeting happened. Rally sausage saved.
If there’s a silver lining, it’s that the 12-game winning streak was basically a reset for the season. Rather than being buried out of the gate, Minnesota found themselves back in the thick of a division race.
Even at 6.5 games back, the Twins still have another eight contests with Cleveland this season and the next one doesn’t come until August (when presumably they will have remembered how to play baseball again).
The Major League Baseball regular season is a journey, not a race. That’s hard to remember with a sports landscape pumping out the NBA playoffs and impending NFL schedule. We must maintain some level of patience.
Remember, it’s not until the middle of the summer that we really start to find out who is a playoff team, who is a World Series contender, and which teams will hold mid-season yard sales. But the same can be said about the Twins’ style of play.
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As Twins Daily’s Nick Nelson said on Twitter , Minnesota’s slow start, followed by a 12-game win streak, before hitting another 7-game losing skid, is truly mind-blowing. The lineup has been streaky (bad lately), and while the starting rotation has been solid, the same cannot be said for a Twins’ bullpen that should be one of the best in baseball.
Ultimately, this team needs to figure out a way for their process to drive more straightforward results. Being on this sort of a roller coaster track isn’t sustainable for 162 games . At some point, the cart is going to fall off the rail.
So, if the Minnesota Twins are going to build upon their postseason success from 2023, they’ll need to figure a way to more consistency, especially at the plate. That’s what good teams do. Ups and downs are going to happen, but let’s stay off the Wild Thing.
You can’t be tossing around a meat package one week, then hold closed door meetings the next. That’s not how baseball works.
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