BOSTON – The standings say the Twins are no longer a playoff team. The eye test matches those analytics.
Twins’ disastrous doubleheader at Boston leaves them outside playoff picture with six games left
The Twins were blown out by the Red Sox twice in one day, losing 8-1 and 9-3 to leave them a game behind the Tigers and Royals for an American League wild-card spot.
The Minnesota Star Tribune
September 23, 2024 at 3:14AM
The Twins closed a horrific road trip with a historic day at Fenway Park on Sunday, falling to the Boston Red Sox by a collective score of 17-4. Pablo López gave up seven runs, matching his season high, in four innings of an 8-1 loss in the first game, and Twins relievers gave up eight runs in a span of 14 batters in the nightcap, a 9-3 drubbing.
The result is an 81-75 record, which trails both free-falling Kansas City, losers of seven in a row, and surging Detroit, winners of six of seven, by one game for the final two wild-card entries in next week’s AL playoffs. It’s the first time the Twins haven’t been in playoff position since May 2.
“We have to forget it. Don’t let it define you, don’t let it get in the way of your process,” López said. “I know the clubhouse right now is looking to the next one. That’s my mentality, too. I know I’m going to get another one that could be just as meaningful as this one, if not more. I’ve got to turn the page.”
While it would be easy to blame the pitching for Sunday’s disaster, it was also the continuation of a month’s worth of eerie silence from the batting order. The Twins collected 25 hits in 30 innings this series, but 24 of them were singles, including all 12 hits Sunday.
Twins hitters went homer-free in the three-game series, the first time that has happened to them in Boston since Aug. 9-11, 2002. They haven’t homered in 51 consecutive innings, in fact, their longest power drought of the season.
“We’re in a funk, and we’re not scoring the runs that we need to. We’re looking for a big hit,” said manager Rocco Baldelli, whose team hasn’t scored more than four runs in a week, and has been held to fewer than three runs 13 times in 29 games. “It’s all I think about. I go to bed at night thinking about this all the time, and I know our hitting coaches and our hitters themselves are, too.”
Losing 12 of 18 in the middle of a pennant race, and eight of their past 10 road games, probably costs them some sleep, too. Now they trudge home for the season’s final six games, beginning Tuesday with three against the last-place Marlins and then three against the playoff-bound Orioles.
“We have to win on Tuesday. We’re going to try to make the best of the day off, come back fresh and ready to do with some enthusiasm,” Baldelli said. “Our guys want it. They want to give ourselves a chance to go to the playoffs. That’s what we’re here for.”
López turned the Game 1 into a rout fairly quickly, by allowing first baseman Triston Casas to hit three-run homers in both the first and third innings. Casas hit his third homer of the day two innings later, launching Brent Headrick’s second major league pitch in more than a year into the seats beyond the Red Sox bullpen in center field.
“There’s no sugarcoating it — not the performance I was looking for, especially with what this game means,” said López, whose ERA climbed to 4.11 with the outing. “Didn’t provide length, didn’t provide quality. I didn’t do my part.”
Lots of that to go around, of course. Royce Lewis went 6-for-27 on the road trip, and he hasn’t driven in a run since Sept. 11. Carlos Santana might lead the Twins in homers and RBI, but he was 1-for-12 during the trip with runners in scoring position.
In the second game, rookie Zebby Matthews shut out the Red Sox for 4⅔ innings and led 2-0 thanks to four consecutive Twins singles in the top of the fifth, but gave up a two-out double to Ceddanne Rafaela in the fifth that brought Baldelli out. Unwilling to allow the rookie to face the top of the order a third time, the manager brought in lefthander Cole Irvin, claimed off waivers from Baltimore last week.
It didn’t go well, though it rarely does for Irvin in this ballpark; in 13⅓ career innings at Fenway, he now has an 11.48 ERA and has given up six home runs. Irvin walked Jarren Duran on four pitches, then left a letter-high 2-1 changeup in the strike zone for Romy Gonzalez, whose three-run blast landed atop the Green Monster in deep left-center, turning the Twins’ brief lead into a deficit.
“I didn’t locate that pitch, not at all. Gosh, we’re in that game — I just have to execute my pitches,” said Irvin, who faced seven batters and let five reach base. “Bad time for probably my worst outing of the year. Wasn’t that I felt off, I just didn’t execute pitches, didn’t throw strikes, and those things add up to a those types of innings.”
The Twins’ response? They were retired in the sixth on five pitches by Boston starter Kutter Crawford.
It sparked something in the Red Sox, too. They strung together five hits, including two doubles, in the bottom of the inning to demoralize the Twins and end the road trip on a rotten note.
“It’s an especially tough day today. But I don’t put my head down,” Santana said. “We go back home, six games left, and try to finish strong. We have to.”
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