Bailey Ober and the Twins dug themselves a very early and deep hole on Saturday, but the American League’s third-best offense rallied to tie the game at 7-7, only to give up three more runs. They never fully recovered after that and fell 10-9 to the Pittsburgh Pirates, the Twins’ fourth straight loss.
It’s also back-to-back series losses for the team from Minnesota. It, too, has me feeling uneasy about this team going forward.
Despite last year’s fire sale and the muted free-agent spending, the Twins have clearly overachieved this season. Coming into Saturday’s game, they had scored the third most runs in the American League, plus the starting pitching has largely been pretty sound.
But Ober was hit hard on Saturday, Taj Bradley wasn’t especially sharp in Friday’s walk-off loss, Connor Prielipp is a rookie and questions remain about Zebby Matthews. The only reliable starter is Joe Ryan, but he’s only one of five guys.
For the moment, Zebby is on the right trajectory, but if he should revert to his historical norm, and Ober and Bradley follow suit, then the Twins are in real trouble, and there’s no way the makeup of this bullpen is going to help. The Twins simply do not have enough shut down arms to protect close leads.
The Twins try to avoid the sweep on Sunday. Zebby gets the ball.
Extra innings…
–The Twins lost by one run on Friday and one run on Saturday. They are now 5-9 in one-run games.
–Bailey’s line: Eight runs (seven earned) on 12 hits, including three home runs, across just four-plus innings with a walk and three whiffs. Just like that and his ERA has jumped to 4.59. Reliever Kody Funderburk wasn’t much better and although fellow reliever John Klein didn’t allow a run, he also walked three batters.
–Although Bailey had an off game, the Twins scored nine runs on 12 hits. Kody Clemens and Luke Keaschall had half of those hits.
–Pitcher Simeon Woods Richardson was designated for assignment on Saturday, which seems extreme when the Twins need all the help they can get in the bullpen. Still, SWR didn’t make a very strong case for himself after he fell to 0-7 with a 7.74 ERA.
–The owners make their pitch: Major League Baseball owners have made their salary cap and salary floor proposal to the players association, and while I agree with the cap I’m not sure what to make of the salary floor as it relates to the Twins.
The proposed “floor” is around $170 million, which is about $70 million more than the Twins’ current payroll. In fact, a number of teams, including the Twins, fall well short of that proposal, The Athletic reports.
In theory I like the floor, but I seriously doubt if the Pohlad family has any interest in going anywhere near that number — if last year’s player selloff is any indication. The floor, it seems, could be met by paying one free agent some fairly serious dough, but again, is that in the DNA of current ownership? I don’t think it is.
What does the salary floor likely mean for the Twins? That the Pohlads are going to work even harder to find that new team owner.