Boos were heard Sunday after Max Kepler struck out in the seventh inning against Cleveland righthander Trevor Stephan and again when he grounded out in the ninth against closer Emmanuel Clase.
The way things have been going for the Twins offense this season, several other players could be targets for fan disappointment.
For Kepler, it's an indictment of what he's become as a hitter.
Defensively, he's excellent in right field and provides value in that area. But he shouldn't be a specialist. The day the Twins signed him as part of what was then an impressive international prospect class in 2009, the comparisons to Shawn Green — in terms of his frame, swing and offensive potential — began. Comparisons are unfair when evaluating teenagers who have yet to play a minor league game, but it's what the baseball cognoscenti do. And the Twins were high on Kepler.
Twins manager Rocco Baldelli, because of injuries and illnesses, batted Kepler in the cleanup spot on Sunday against Cleveland. When your cleanup hitter has a .660 OPS, that shows how limited your options are. Kepler responded by going 0-for-4 as the Twins lost 2-1 for their whopping 11th one-run loss, third most in the American League.
Kepler is not a cleanup hitter. Frankly, it's hard to determine where in a batting order he should hit.
Now he heads into a week of big games at Tampa Bay and Toronto in a 3-for-31 skid that has pulled his batting average down to .192. He's not driving pitches and he struggles hitting fastballs. He entered Sunday batting .138 against four-seam fastballs and .176 against sinkers. And that's not an outlier. In 2022, he hit .185 against four-seamers — although he fared much better against sinkers, hitting .340.
But his struggles go farther back than 2022. Kepler appeared headed for stardom in 2019 when he batted .252 with 36 home runs and 96 RBI while producing a productive OPS of .855. The Twins appeared to be clairvoyant then, as they signed Kepler during that spring training to a five-year, $35 million deal. Kepler inked that deal the same day the club extended Jorge Polanco, who was part of the same international class and was his roommate during his first year of professional ball. Polanco has become a reliable hitter and was an All-Star in 2019. Kepler has not.