When eminent historians look back at what happened to the 2026 Minnesota Twins, they’ll point to a spit and baling wire bullpen, key injuries to pitchers and position players, a slow start from Royce Lewis and the team’s struggles against the Senior Circuit, otherwise known as the National League.
One might find it hard to believe that interleague play could change the trajectory of an entire season, but the Twins certainly are trying to make that case after they fell to 13-25 against the NL on Saturday after another blowout loss to the Philadelphia Phillies.
And they’re far from done playing National League teams. Up next they have to take on the Atlanta Braves, followed by the San Diego Padres, followed by the San Francisco Giants before the season ends.
The Twins offense and quality pitching has completely disappeared against the Phillies. They were blown out 7-1 in the Field of Dreams game on Thursday, then routed again 9-1 on Saturday. If this kind of play continues against the Braves and Padres, you can forget about any kind of postseason play.
The Twins were especially bad on Saturday.
Starter Connor Prielipp allowed eight earned runs across five innings, while the lineup was an abysmal 1-for-14 with runners in scoring position and left 11 runners on base. Over the two losses, the Twins are 1-for-19 with 20 left on base. Ugh.
The Twins will try to salvage a win on Sunday. Dean Kremer gets the ball.
Extra innings…
–The Twins are 60-64, now five games back in the division, but only a game out of the wild card race. Six American League teams, all with losing records, are within three games of the final wild card spot. This might be the first time a team with a 162-game regular season losing record qualifies for the postseason. An 80-82 record just might do it.
–Prielipp’s line: Eight runs allowed on eight hits, including a home run, with four walks and six strikeouts. He is now 3-6 with a 5.34 ERA. None of this is good.
–The Twins were 15-9 in July and are so far 4-9 in August.
–The lone bright spot: Rookie Kaelen Culpepper had two hits in Saturday’s loss, including a double.
–The Field of Dreams game was disappointing. It played like Children of the Corn for the Twins, but there were other problems.
While emerging from the cornfield provides some drama, we also were subjected to Matt Vasgersian and ex-Yankee CC Sabathia in the Netflix TV booth. An ex-Yankee calling a Twins game? Are you kidding me? Talk about trying to hex a team.
It was Twins vs. Phillies. Why not have Jim Kaat and Mike Schmidt supply the color commentary?
And all the bells and whistles, like mic’d up players, made it feel like nothing special, as if it were just another baseball game on Fox TV.