The Twins lost again on Friday, a 7-4 defeat to the Chicago White Sox at home to drop them further back in the race for either the division or wild card.
The loss also acted as a reminder of just how challenging late-summer baseball has been for this team over the past three seasons. The Twins were 15-9 in July and sitting pretty, but then August rolled around and they have fallen to 8-16 this month.
The 2025 and 2024 seasons offered more of the same. In August 2024, they were 14-14 and in September 9-18. A season later they were 11-17 in August and 8-18 in September.
What explains the sudden struggles? Frankly, this team overachieved for most of the season and I think just finally ran out of gas. The projections for 2026 were bad — I thought they were going to lose 100 games — but the starting pitching was good, the offense showed it could score runs and they mixed and matched relievers in the bullpen to get by. They finally found a decent closer in Yoendrys Gomez.
Injuries certainly haven’t helped, and have touched both the rotation and bullpen, and without Byron Buxton in the lineup, the Twins are just not as good.
Friday’s loss was kind of a mess. Despite two home runs and the major league debut of top prospect Walker Jenkins, starter Dean Kremer delivered a sub-par outing, two wild pitches and a passed ball allowed runs to score and although the Twins banged out 12 hits, they weren’t hits at the most opportune times because they went 1-for-11 with runners in scoring position and left eight on base.
They will try again tomorrow. Bailey Ober gets the ball.
Extra innings…
–The Twins are 64-71, now 7.5 games back in the division and four games back in the wild card race. Want to make a move up in the standings? It helps if you can beat the front-running White Sox.
–Jenkins, the Twins’ No. 1 prospect and baseball’s 15th prospect overall, made his major league debut in center field on Friday. Jenkins collected a hit, a walk and struck out in his debut. Not bad. Expectations are high for the 21-year-old.
–On YouTube, I watched the Twins shut out the California Angels 8-0 at the Metrodome on April 21, 1990.
By then, longtime Twins pitcher Bert Blyleven had moved on to join the Halos. In the top of the first inning, Twins pitcher David West hit a batter, so Bert delivered payback in the bottom of the frame by drilling Dan Gladden in the ribs. It went downhill from there.
Gladden stole second base, Kirby Puckett singled, Kent Hrbek homered, Gary Gaetti singled and Randy Bush homered again to make it 5-0 Twins after one inning.
The Star Tribune was there:
The hottest Twins of late have been Dan Gladden and Gene Larkin. Gladden increased his hitting streak to seven games yesterday and ignited the five-run first when he was hit by Blyleven’s first pitch. Twins starter David West had hit Devon White in the top of the first. “I don’t know why he did it,” Gladden said of Blyleven’s inside pitch. “But it gave us five runs.”
Source: Newspapers.com