The Twins ended their 2025 campaign at 70-92 on Sunday with a 2-1 loss in 10 innings to the Philadelphia Phillies, winners of the National League East.
The question now is: What’s next for these Twins? There are a lot of question marks about this team, especially the bullpen, but the starting rotation looked good down the stretch.
Taj Bradley, Bailey Ober, Zebby Matthews, Joe Ryan, Mick Abel and Simeon Woods Richardson all made quality starts or came very close to doing just that. Although SWR didn’t figure in Sunday’s decision, he allowed just a hit across six innings with nine strikeouts and trimmed his ERA to a very respectable — at least in the American League — 4.04.
MLB.com also noted the stellar turn of the rotation.
“Over the course of the road trip, Twins starters combined for 36 innings pitched, four runs (three earned), 16 hits, five walks and 47 strikeouts. That’s a combined 0.75 ERA for Zebby Matthews, Taj Bradley, Bailey Ober, Joe Ryan, Mick Abel and Woods Richardson.”
Portland, Oregon’s Mick Abel, a top pick of the Phillies who came over in the Jhoan Duran deal, made a very encouraging start in Saturday’s 5-0 win over the Phils. Abel, too, fanned nine across six innings, with three hits allowed and a walk in the win.
Abel got knocked around earlier in the season, but after Saturday’s three-hit effort he slashed his ERA by a full run to 6.23 from 7.36.
Extra innings…
–The Twins had only five hits in Sunday’s game and catcher Ryan Jeffers was responsible for three of them.
–Reliever Genesis Cabrera, a sore spot for this team down the stretch, blew the save in the eighth inning after he served up a game-tying dinger to ex-Twin Max Kepler, who connected for his 18th homer this season. Cabrera blew the save, but reliever Cody Laweryson was tagged with the loss. But what a way to lose: he served up a sacrifice bunt and sac fly and that was the game. Not a lot you can do there with a runner starting on second base in extra innings.
–Speaking of which, the Twins were terrible in extra innings this season at 4-11.
–Other season stats: The Twins were…
- 8-18 in September.
- 15-27 in one-run games.
- 20-28 in interleague play.
- 23-43 in second-half play.
–The Cleveland Guardians finally clinched the AL Central division on Sunday making yet another comeback in a month of comebacks. The Texas Rangers scored three runs in the top of the 10th inning and then the Guards scored four in the bottom of the frame for the 9-8 walk-off winner.
–The Guards finished the season with a negative run differential — they allowed more runs than they scored — and STILL they went 20-7 in September to win the division by a game. How did they do it? Well, they got a huge hand from the Detroit Tigers who went 7-17 the same month.
Still, you don’t want to play the Guards in the postseason. Somehow, some way they find a way to win.
Source: Baseball-Reference.com.