The Twins dropped three of four games to the Los Angeles Angels, including a 6-2 loss on Sunday. The Twins are now a season-worst 16 games under .500.
Moving on…
The real Twins news on Sunday broke during the game when The Athletic reported that injured center fielder Byron Buxton had rejected a Twins’ contract offer of $73 million over seven years, and the Twins and Buxton still made no headway even after the deal was sweetened to $80 million, the online news site reported.
For someone who has been repeatedly injured throughout their career, I find that to be a pretty generous offer.
The New York Post last week, citing The Athletic again, reported the contact details in dire terms, saying that if Buxton rejected the deal, the Twins were going to trade him before July 30. However, MLB Trade Rumors, and others, have pointed out that Buck is still under team control.
The question now is whether Minnesota’s inability to lock up Buxton long-term will push them to be more aggressive in offloading assets like Jose Berrios and Taylor Rogers. Both are under team control through 2022, like Buxton. Both are key cogs in a potential contender in 2022, like Buxton.
Michael Pineda gets the ball Monday versus the Detroit Tigers.
Extra innings…
-The Twins played pretty forgettable baseball on Sunday, except in the first inning. Max Kepler came to the plate and just missed hitting the right field foul pole. Then, as if on cue, he hit the next pitch for a home run, his 13th of the season. Then rookie, Brent Rooker, who blasted 19 dingers in 61 games at Triple-A St. Paul, crushed an offering into the third deck of Target Field. And then the bats fell silent for the remainder of the game.
-On July 26, 1967, the Twins and Yankees battled for 18 innings at Yankee Stadium before 21,000 fans, according to Baseball-Reference.com. In the top of the 18th, Rod Carew walked, stole second, advanced to third on an error and then scored the go-ahead run on a Rich Rollins single.
In the bottom of the 18th, Twins pitcher Jim Roland induced a groundout, walked a batter and got two flyouts to beat the Yanks, 3-2. The Twins went 12-6 against the Yankees that season.