Twins imagine the best as season resumes, but changes could revamp roster

DETROIT — Nelson Cruz isn't naive and he isn't in denial. But he's a competitor, one who perhaps gets caught up in the euphoria of the moment.

Which is why, when asked amid this week's All-Star festivities for his to-do list for the second half of the 2021 season, he set a goal that likely exceeds even the reach of one of his 450-foot home runs.

"I don't see any reason why we can't bounce back and do something magical," Cruz said of the Twins' postseason chances. "I think we all feel that way."

Cruz said his opinion coalesced last weekend, when he and his teammates swept four games from the Tigers, erasing multi-run deficits in the late innings in three of them. "We should feel pretty comfortable, the way we're playing," said Cruz, for the moment overlooking the team's seven losses in the nine games before that series. "The pitching was there, for the most part, and the offense was definitely there. … We just need to keep that going."

By a quirk of the schedule, they get the chance to keep it going against those same Tigers, beginning with a Friday doubleheader in Comerica Park. But even if they continue to feast on their favorite foe — they're 7-2 against Detroit this year — they will continue on to Chicago next, to face a White Sox team that has beaten them 10 times in a dozen matchups.

And it would indeed require witchcraft for the Twins to dig out of the standings graveyard they find themselves in as baseball resumes.

At 39-50, they trail Chicago by 15 games in the AL Central. Only once in its six-decade history has Minnesota overcome a double-digit All-Star-break deficit to reach the postseason, and that 2006 team, staring at an 11-game deficit behind the Tigers, had a winning record (47-39) plus that season's MVP (Justin Morneau) and Cy Young (Johan Santana) winners on the roster.

Baseball standings: By division | Wild Card

That team also had the confidence borne of its previous second-half rush; the 2003 Twins, division champs after a 44-49 first half, are the only team in franchise history to make the playoffs after sitting below .500 at the break.

"I know it won't be easy," Cruz acknowledged, before confronting the biggest reason that's true: He might not even be a Twin much longer, with the July 30 trade deadline approaching.

Speculation about the 41-year-old slugger's future intensified at the midseason break, with Cruz the rumored centerpiece of a potential teardown of the underachieving roster. His contract expires in October, as does those of Andrelton Simmons, J.A. Happ, Alexander Colome and Hansel Robles, making them potentially more valuable as trade chips, slight as the return might be, than everyday contributors.

Jose Berrios, Josh Donaldson, Taylor Rogers and even Byron Buxton have reportedly been inquired about as well, transactions that would signal a more serious reset of the team's future.

"I cannot predict the future, but I hope that's not the case," Cruz said. "I hope they keep me around."

Even if a trade meant a return to the postseason and another chance to pursue the championship that has eluded him in his 17 seasons? "That might make a difference," Cruz said after a pause. "But I'm not looking to go anywhere."

Neither is Rocco Baldelli, who said his approach won't change, even as he experiences his first disappointing season (though not first disappointing postseason) as a manager, after back-to-back division championships.

"We don't just sign up for wins, we sign up for all of it," said Baldelli, who made a different long-term commitment over the All-Star break by marrying his longtime girlfriend, Allie Genoa. "Working through it, I can't say it was always easy. It can be challenging, but we're up for the task and we're going to stay at it."

Baldelli and his staff will be expected to continue to develop rookies like Trevor Larnach and Alex Kirilloff, to determine whether newcomers like Nick Gordon, Bailey Ober and Friday's second-half starter, Charlie Barnes, can be regular contributors, to find a way to shake Max Kepler and Miguel Sano out of season-long downturns.

His primary task, along with his coaching staff and the front office, however, is to find solutions for a pitching staff that has tumbled from the third-best in the American League, with a 3.58 collective ERA during the short 2020 season, to third-worst this year, at 4.98 near a run and a half worse per game.

With the exceptions of Berrios and Rogers, the decline has been staff-wide, with starting pitchers' ERAs rising from 3.54 to 5.03, the bullpen's going from 3.62 to 4.91. And relief pitchers have offered little relief; after allowing only 29% of inherited baserunners to score in 2020, the Twins' bullpen has let 56% of those runners score this year. It's been 50 seasons since an AL relief staff allowed more than half of its runners to score.

"Our pitching needs to be better. … Anyone who has followed our team knows that's the truth," Baldelli said. "We have avenues we can go down, and work to do. We have to hold players accountable, hold myself accountable."