June 5, 2023

Twins whiff their way to series split with Guardians

The Twins came away with a disappointing split of their four-game series with the Cleveland Guardians on Sunday, the finale featuring 16 team strikeouts in a 2-1 loss to the Guards.

That made a loser out of starter Joe Ryan, despite making another quality start. But if you’re going to score only one run on five hits … well, these things are going to happen. Ryan fell to 7-3 with a 2.76 ERA.

The Twins are off Monday, then hit the road for six games with stops in Tampa to play the best team in baseball, followed by three more at Toronto where the Blue Jay are no pushovers.

Louie Varland gets the ball on Tuesday.

Extra innings …

-Twins Territory social media is getting pretty surly about Max Kepler and why he continues to get a regular spot in the lineup amid his struggles to hit. Kepler is hitting .192 on the season, but over the last seven games he’s batting .115. And with Trevor Larnach and Matt Wallner waiting in the wings, the Twins are going to have to be very creative to justify Kepler’s presence on the team.

Larnach has been on the injured list with pneumonia and yet (incredibly) still holds the team lead in RBI with 27, and Wallner, in a recent 11-game stretch with the Twins, hit .368. If the Twins need offense, and it’s clear that they do, how much more rope can they give to Kepler? He was 0-for-4 in Sunday’s loss.

-The Guardians’ Triston McKenzie made his first start of the season and struck out 10 over five innings. The Twins lead the majors in team strikeouts with 597 through 59 games, according to Baseball-Reference.com.

June 4, 2023

Twins lose, Luis Arraez has 5 hits, 5 RBI for Marlins

The Twins had a ho-hum day at Target Field on Saturday, finally losing 4-2 to the Cleveland Guardians. The Twins have won the first two games of the series, so they are still in line for the series win over the Guards on Sunday. But let’s face it fans, the Twins took a backseat after... Continue Reading »

June 1, 2023

Twins finally score with the bases loaded, end series losing streak

The Twins leave Houston with a series win, punctuated by an 8-2 victory over the Astros on Wednesday that featured not one bases-loaded scoring moment, but two. And they were brought to you by first basemen “Donnie Barrels” Solano and catcher Ryan Jeffers, both of whom had two hits and drove in six of the... Continue Reading »

May 30, 2023

Here comes the rooster: Lewis, Jeffers rally Twins to 7-5 win

Infielder Royce Lewis, the Twins’ No. 1 overall pick in the 2017 amateur draft and a player who has twice battled back from serious knee injuries, returned to the lineup on Monday and didn’t disappoint, hitting a three-run home run to start the scoring and a game-tying single to send the game to the 10th... Continue Reading »

May 29, 2023

Twins lose 4th straight series, now face Houston (ugh)

The Minnesota Twins lost their fourth straight series on Sunday, a 3-0 defeat to Jose Berrios and the Toronto Blue Jays. What does it all mean? It means the Twins are essentially a .500 ball club, which is … which is … which is … well, what is it exactly? The Twins aren’t terrible, of... Continue Reading »

May 28, 2023

Youth movement gets Twins win that bullpen nearly blows

The kids were alright on Saturday as Eddie Julien, Matt Wallner and Alex Kirilloff accounted for nine of the Twins’ 14 hits, helping to power the club to a 9-7 win over the Toronto Blue Jays. One veteran, Willi Castro, did get into the act with a two home run day, but it was the... Continue Reading »

May 27, 2023

Twins hitters walk 9 times and still can’t score

The Toronto Blue Jays were in a giving mood in Game 1 of their series at Target Field on Friday, issuing nine base on balls to Twins hitters. Unfortunately, the Twins, continuing a recent theme, could not capitalize on all those base runners and lost 3-1. They went 1-for-9 with runners in scoring position and... Continue Reading »

May 24, 2023

The Twins appear to be in serious trouble, folks

The Twins lost their third straight series on Tuesday to the San Francisco Giants after a very promising 3-0 lead turned into a 4-3 disaster. The Twins are now a game over .500 (yet they still lead the incredibly weak AL Central) and 4-6 in their last 10 games. They are struggling to hit, to... Continue Reading »

May 22, 2023

Twins drop another series as team can’t score, bullpen doesn’t help

The Twins wrapped up their West Coast road trip with a losing record after they dropped both series to the Dodgers and Angels, including Sunday’s 4-2 loss to the Halos. And once again a familiar pattern reared its head for the Twins: Great starting pitching, terrible situational hitting (the Twins again could not score with... Continue Reading »

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Hi, I’m Rolf Boone, Twins fan.

I became a fan of the Minnesota Twins after a friendly wager in the early 1980s. I survived Ron Davis, the meltdown in Cleveland, Phil Bradley at the Kingdome and then marveled at a rising generation of stars and two World Series wins in 1987 and 1991. Brad Radke made the 1990s bearable, while Kirby Puckett’s eye injury, exit from the game and eventual death made it almost too much to bear. The new century ushered in more talent — Joe Mauer, Johan Santana, Joe Nathan, Torii Hunter, Justin Morneau — and consecutive seasons of playoff baseball, followed by consecutive seasons of losing baseball. A winning season returned in 2015. So here we are. Go Twins.