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Last Week's Game Results:
Game 42 | MIN 5, DET 4: Urshela Walks It Off Again
Game 43 | MIN 2, DET 0: Gray Dominates in Shutout Victory
Game 44 | DET 4, MIN 2: Offense Goes Cold, No Sweep
Game 45 | KC 3, MIN 2: Bullpen and Bats Fall Short
Game 46 | MIN 10, KC 7: Polanco, Correa Provide Power
Game 46 | KC 7, MIN 3: Archer Hits a Wall Against Royals
Game 47 | MIN 7, KC 3: Twins Split Behind Gray's Win
Weekly Snapshot: Mon, 5/23 through Sun, 5/29
***
Record Last Week: 4-3 (Overall: 29-19)
Run Differential Last Week: +3 (Overall: +34)
Standing: 1st Place in AL Central (5.0 GA)
NEWS & NOTES
On Sunday, Royce Lewis was recalled from Triple-A, with José Miranda going down. Lewis started in center field. The first couple balls in play came his way, and he fielded them flawlessly. Then, he made a great play running into the wall and hurt his surgically repaired knee, which basically sounds like a worst case scenario.
As of Sunday night, Lewis was diagnosed with a bone bruise. We'll learn more in the coming week, but he's going on the injured list.
The Twins bullpen has seen a constant flow of churn, which is not exactly out of character for the Twins front office, but still exhausting to keep up with.
The past week saw Danny Coulombe activated from the injured list and then placed back on it after aggravating a hip injury in his first appearance. Yennier Canó was optioned to Triple-A in the wake of another ugly outing Friday that left his ERA at 13.50.
Juan Minaya and Jovani Moran, who both factored into the second-half bullpen mix last year, have been called up as reinforcements. Veteran reliever Hunter Wood was signed to a minor-league contract and will have a chance to make his case at St. Paul for another big-league shot. Coming back from elbow surgery, he has a 3.34 ERA in 91 ⅔ big-league innings.
The Twins are digging deeper than ever into their reliever depth. With Coulombe, Cody Stashak, Josh Winder, and Jorge Alcala all sidelined, they need some guys to step up.
In the rotation, Joe Ryan missed his scheduled start on Thursday due to COVID, so Devin Smeltzer was called up for another spot start. Smeltzer delivered once again with seven shutout innings. He'll get another turn in Tuesday's upcoming doubleheader.
Elsewhere in the system, pitching prospect Chris Vallimont – designated for assignment the previous week – was claimed off waivers by Baltimore. Gilberto Celestino went on the COVID list two days after Ryan. Max Kepler left Saturday';s game with right quad tightness, although it looks like he'll avoid the IL
HIGHLIGHTS
The Twins are getting everything they could've possibly hoped for out of Sonny Gray thus far. He delivered his finest outing yet on Tuesday, striking out 10 Tigers over seven shutout innings to spearhead a 2-0 victory. He followed with six innings of one-run ball on Sunday against Kansas City, fanning four with no walks. He exited the game with pectoral soreness.
Hopefully it's no big issue, because Gray is becoming exactly what the Twins need him to be: an ace. He's shutting down opposing lineups and going deep, with a clear level of confidence.
Gray has been dominating. Of course, he's also been doing so against some pretty weak lineups, with a slate of opponents this month that has included Oakland (twice), Cleveland, Detroit, and Kansas City. We'll get a better idea of his potential playoff mettle when the schedule steepens in June. His next scheduled start is the opener of the Blue Jays series, against a high-powered offense on the road.
Luis Arraez continues to key the lineup with remarkably consistent production. He ran his hitting streak to nine games last week, starting everyday and going 12-for-27 with four walks. His on-base percentage sits at .456 on the season, making him an ideal asset at the top of the order.
Arraez has also looked surprisingly adept at first base – a position he has now firmly taken over for this team. It's an unexpectedly favorable scenario because it both addresses a key need on the field for the Twins, and also largely hides Arraez's defensive deficiencies. He's not a world-beater at first but he's completely fine there, and it's been huge for the team.
Other standout performances from the past week included:
- Gio Urshela opening the week with a walk-off hit and ending it with a three-run blast on Sunday. He had a couple of three-hit games, and continued to make impressive plays at third base, providing a steady veteran presence at the hot corner.
- Trevor Larnach was a flat-out dominant force, going 9-for-16 with four homers and eight RBIs. He's a crucial cog in the offense right now.
- Dylan Bundy took care of business against Detroit on Wednesday, holding the Tigers to one run over 5 ⅔ innings. He struck out six and walked one. Since giving up nine earned runs in Baltimore on May 4th and going on the COVID list almost immediately after, Bundy has allowed just that one run over 8 ⅔ innings in two starts. Unfortunately, the Twins wasted his quality effort on Wednesday with a bullpen hiccup and lack of offensive support, just as they did with Smeltzer the following day.
- Carlos Correa finished 10-for-32 with two doubles and a homer. He doesn't appear hampered by the finger injury that sidelined him, and is starting to show flashes of his potential with an OPS steadily on the rise. It still feels like we're due for a true breakout hot streak from Correa, and it'd be really nice if that coincided with the upcoming run of tough opponents.
LOWLIGHTS
Byron Buxton went from red-hot to ice-old quicker than Minnesota temps in September. The center fielder saw his hitless streak stretch to 30 at-bats as he started the week 0-for-17 before legging out an infield single late in Friday's game then notching a couple hits over the weekend.
The struggles lowered Buxton's average briefly below .200 and he now sits with a .205/.287/.512 slash line on then season – still well above average thanks to his ridiculous power-hitting display early on.
In baseball it's pretty standard for cold streaks to counteract hot streaks in the endless dance toward equilibrium, and Buxton's slump seems like a somewhat extreme version of this. He isn't striking out a ton, nor producing terrible contact. Buxton's six-game hitless spell was driven by a high degree of bad luck and happenstance.
Then again, he's also clearly playing through lingering discomfort and physical limitation while on the field. You can see it in his mannerisms as he pulls into second on a double, and you have to believe it's affecting his results. For now, the Twins seem intent to stick with their plan of giving him routine days off and avoiding the injured list.
Minnesota's offense has been quite good, in relative terms, but like many around the league this year, they've been prone to lengthy periods of quietude. Buxton's slump is certainly a big ingredient in that, but Ryan Jeffers also taking a plunge (1-for-14 last week) has also factored. Various players throughout the lineup – even those who've generally been playing well – have been coming up short in a lot of key RISP spots lately. On multiple occasions the Twins loaded the bases with no outs in key moments, and came away empty.
That, combined with some emerging warts in the bullpen, caused the Twins to lose some of the close games that were previously going their way.
Tyler Duffey easily had the team's worst Win Probability Added of the week, as he single-handedly coughed up Thursday's contest by turning a 2-0 lead into a 3-2 deficit. The costly clunker was similar to Duffey's season debut, in that he came in with a clean frame and a lead, and ended up with an L.
It bears noting that Duffey seemed to be righting the ship – between those two appearances, he had a 2.76 ERA with six holds and a save in 16 outings – but the right-hander is plainly bringing sub-par stuff. Even when he succeeds, it doesn't have sustainable underpinnings. His fastballs are 91-MPH cookies. Even the bread-and-butter breaking ball that fueled Duffey's emergence as a reliever isn't doing what it used to.
TRENDING STORYLINE
On Saturday night, with Max Kepler facing a potential IL stint following his exit with right leg tightness, I pondered whether Lewis or Alex Kirilloff would get the call to fill his roster spot. It turns out Kepler avoided the injured list, but Lewis was called up anyway, and he ended up on IL in a wild turn of events.
So now... Kirilloff has got to be coming up. Right?
LOOKING AHEAD
The Twins are in the thick of it right now. They're amidst a stretch of 18 games in 17 days, including an upcoming scheduled doubleheader on Tuesday. This is going to be a hell of a week.
Granted, the Twins open with five games against a Tigers team they have mostly handled. But they're on the road, and five games in four days presents many challenges no matter whom the opponent.
Far from getting any respite after this sprint, the Twins head straight to Toronto for three games against a very good Blue Jays team. This opens a run of three straight series against the top three teams in the AL East.
They did a solid job against an extended run against cushy competition, but now the Twins are going to see their mettle put to the test. We're scheduled to see an old friend next Saturday.
MONDAY, 5/30: TWINS @ TIGERS – RHP Dylan Bundy v. RHP Beau Brieske
TUESDAY, 5/31 (1): TWINS @ TIGERS – LHP Devin Smeltzer v. RHP Rony Garcia
TUESDAY, 5/31 (2): TWINS @ TIGERS – TBD v. TBD
WEDNESDAY, 6/1: TWINS @ TIGERS – RHP Bailey Ober v. LHP Tarik Skubal
THURSDAY, 6/2: TWINS @ TIGERS – RHP Chris Archer v. RHP Alex Faedo
FRIDAY, 6/3: TWINS @ BLUE JAYS – RHP Sonny Gray v. LHP Yusei Kikuchi
SATURDAY, 6/4: TWINS @ BLUE JAYS – RHP Dylan Bundy v. RHP Jose Berríos
SUNDAY, 6/5: TWINS @ BLUE JAYS – TBD v. RHP Kevin Gausman
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