August 31, 2022

Twins extend winning streak to 5 games, but Guardians keep winning, too

The Twins rallied for a 10-5 win over the Boston Red Sox on Tuesday, giving them the series win, the season series win over Boston and a chance to take three games from Beantown for their second straight sweep.

Joe Ryan gets the ball for the Twins on Wednesday.

All is shaping up nicely for the Twins after they appeared dead in the water in Houston. A sweep of the Red Sox appears to be in hand and then the Twins hit the road to play the struggling Chicago White Sox. I think the Twins have a good chance of sweeping the South Siders, which would mean a nine-game winning streak going into the Bronx to face the New York Yankees. That would be ideal because, given the lopsided history between the Yanks and Twins, the Twins could easily be swept there before they come home to play the Cleveland Guardians.

So what has sparked the winning streak? Was it manager Rocco Baldelli’s recent speech, encouraging his players to relax and have fun? (Dan Hayes of The Athletic has reported it as the “zero fucks” speech.) Or is there something else at work here?

Some Twins have certainly stepped up their play of late. Carlos Correa is hitting .346 over the past week, Gio Urshela is hitting .292 and Jake Cave about .280 over the same period. That’s good because Luis Arraez, the best hitter on the team, has cooled off over the past two weeks, hitting right around .200.

And Nick Gordon hit his first career grand slam on Tuesday, driving in more than half of the Twins’ 10 runs. Cave and Gary Sanchez also homered in the win.

Extra innings…

-Although Cleveland also won on Tuesday, they were idle on Monday so the Twins are a half-game closer to the top spot in the division.

-The Guardians beat the vastly improved Baltimore Orioles on Tuesday. I’m expecting the O’s to put up more of a fight. If they get dusted by the Guardians, I’m going back to calling them the St. Louis Browns.

-Starting pitcher Chris Archer’s weird season continues to roll along. He did what he usually does, giving the Twins right around four innings of work on Tuesday before exiting the game. He didn’t win, he didn’t lose, but he did exit with his 14th no-decision start of the season. Archer has made 23 starts and has nine decisions: two wins and seven losses.

COMMENTS

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.