Is there any point in playing the big-money, big-talent, big-everything Los Angeles Dodgers when the outcome seems preordained?
I imagine a lot of mid-market major league teams feel this way, and no doubt the Twins are among them after they returned home and lost by a run on Monday and then were blown out by Big Blue on Tuesday, 12-3.
Making all of this more disappointing is that the Twins returned home on a high after a 5-1 road trip in which they swept the Texas Rangers and earned a series win over the Arizona Diamondbacks.
But, of course, you have to be ready to play the Dodgers and the Twins simply haven’t shown up in the first two games. The bats have fallen silent and the pitching, outside of Monday, has been lacking.
Joe Ryan was scratched from his start on Tuesday due to illness — he will pitch the finale Wednesday against Ohtani — so that meant a bullpen day on the mound.
Three of four pitchers had terrible command problems.
Kendry Rojas needed 50 pitches to get through two innings; Austin Voth, a recent callup, needed 96 pitches (!) to get through four innings; and veteran lefty Taylor Rogers needed 38 pitches to get through one inning. He also allowed five earned runs in the process.
The best of the bunch was Travis Adams who fanned four across two innings.
Extra innings…
–The only bright spot in Tuesday’s game? Brooks Lee hit his 13th home run in the bottom of the 9th inning off former Twins closer Brock Stewart. There are a lot of former Twins closers scattered among baseball after last season’s fire sale, of course.
–Don’t blame, Zebby: Daniel Zebulon Matthews allowed just two runs over six innings in his quality start Monday against the Dodgers. The lineup, however, backed him with only one run, courtesy of Byron Buxton, who hit his 25th home run.
–Ask and you shall receive: I was calling for Twins reliever Justin Lawrence to be designated for assignment after his lousy showing in the desert, and guess what? That’s exactly what happened. The Twins sent Lawrence packing so that the team could reinstate Rojas from the injured list.
–Why all the cost-cutting? If you’re still puzzled (I know I am) over ownership’s decision to get rid of 10 players last season, this MLB.com story on competitive balance sheds light on some of the challenges faced by mid-market teams, including the Twins.
They and other teams are adjusting to much lower TV revenue, according to the MLB.com story.
One big factor is the disruption to the cable model, which disproportionately affects small- and mid-market teams. Affected clubs that lost RSN (regional sports network) deals have had their local media revenues reduced by about half.
Twins ownership recently shared that the club sold 50,000 streaming subscriptions last year at $99 per sub — about $5 million — while trying to replace revenues from a defunct cable deal that paid $54 million in 2023. Their combined cable-and-streaming revenues still fall far short.
What’s the answer to growing subscriptions? That’s easy: spending money and putting a winning product on the field, but if that’s anathema to the Pohlad family — the owners of the Twins — then they need to get out of the way and sell the team.
Find that buyer, Tom.
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