Image courtesy of Kamil Krzaczynski-Imagn Images

The Weekly Nutshell:
The Minnesota Twins have moved past the ‘dead cat bounce’ phase and now they just look like roadkill. The most humiliating week of on-field results in a season full of them saw this meandering corpse of a ballclub outplayed from front to back by a pair of last-place teams, dropping five of six against the Athletics and White Sox. The Twins were outscored by 20 runs and largely failed to put up much of a fight, including in an 8-0 blowout loss against lowly Chicago to close things out. 

I guess some folks might find solace in gravitating toward a higher draft pick. Tough for me to get excited about that personally. What I see is a losing culture starting to crystallize, with some painful downstream implications. We’ll dig into those a bit as we dissect this sorry week of baseball from the hollowed-out husk of the Twins. 

Weekly Snapshot: Mon, 8/18 through Sun, 8/24
***
Record Last Week: 1-5 (Overall: 59-71)
Run Differential Last Week: -20 (Overall: -57)
Standing: 4th Place in AL Central (14 GB) 

Game 125 | OAK 6, MIN 3: Defense Lets Ryan Down as Lineup Languishes

Game 126 | OAK 4, MIN 2 (10): Offense Whiffs on Opportunities Repeatedly

Twins hitters: 2-15 RISP, 12 LOB

Game 127 | OAK 8, MIN 3: Last-Place A’s Seal Sweep with Front-to-Back Rout

Game 128 | MIN 9, CWS 7: Lewis Grand Slam Helps Twins Outslug White Sox

Lewis: 3-5, HR, 4 RBI, SB

Game 129 | CWS 7, MIN 3: Abel Gets Rocked in Twins Debut, Digs Deep Hole

Abel: 3 IP, 7 H, 6 ER, 2 BB, 2 K

Game 130 | CWS 8, MIN 0: Bradley Follows with Another Ugly Debut, Bats Blanked

Bradley: 5 IP, 9 H, 7 ER, 1 K

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NEWS & NOTES

Twins fans finally got their first look at two of the top pitching acquisitions from the trade deadline, with Mick Abel and Taj Bradley joining the big-league rotation on successive days over the weekend following a Triple-A tune-up to start their tenures in Minnesota. You can read about their debuts below. To make room on the roster, José Ureña and Erasmo Ramírez were designated for assignment. 

Pablo López made his first rehab start on Thursday for the St. Paul Saints, pitching 1 ⅔ innings before hitting a predetermined pitch count (45). López allowed four hits, a walk and a run but showed solid velocity and appeared healthy in his first game action since he went down with a teres major strain on June 3rd. López will need at least two or three more rehab starts to build up, but could be back on the mound for the Twins by early-to-mid September.

 

Simeon Woods Richardson figures to be back sooner. He was down for a while with a bad digestive issue caused by a parasite, and hasn’t started for the Twins in nearly a month, but SWR is nearing readiness. He made a second rehab appearance with St. Paul later in Thursday’s game, entering in the fourth and allowing allowed four runs (3 ER) on five hits and a walk in 3 â…“ innings, striking out four. Not the prettiest results, but as long as he’s feeling physically able, the Twins will happily welcome him back into their rotation – maybe as soon as the next time through. Part of me wonders if we could see him used in at least a pseudo-relief role in September.

HIGHLIGHTS

Coming off a strong finish to the previous week, Brooks Lee stayed hot during an otherwise forgettable stretch for the Twins offense. Lee opened the week with another home run against the Athletics, then notched three hits including a double the following night. He finished the week 6-for-19 with six runs scored.

It was good to see a couple more extra-base hits from Brooks, but I’m even more encouraged by the patience on display with five walks and just two strikeouts. Poor swing decisions have been a big issue for Lee throughout the first 150 or so games in his MLB career, and it’s probably the biggest barrier he needs to overcome in order to pan out as a solid regular. The fact that he’s been finding his preferred pitch to jump on more frequently of late, and laying off the pitchers’ pitches to coax more free passes, is very promising. Hopefully he can keep it up. It’ll be one of the team’s biggest storylines into September.

 

Another central storyline, for better or worse: Royce Lewis, whose mercurial season continues to follow a twisting path. The third baseman’s frustration with another prolonged slump was growing palpable last week. He slammed his helmet in the dugout on Wednesday after coming up short of a home run, finishing the A’s series 2-for-11 to drop his OPS back down below .650. Before Friday’s game in Chicago, Lewis made some odd comments to reporters about not wanting to follow coaching advice and implement in-season changes because it would put his stats at risk.

 

Thing is: he didn’t have much in the way of stats to speak of, or at least not until Royce went out that very night and balled against the White Sox, launching a grand slam as part of a three-hit game that also included a stolen base and some stellar glovework at third. He homered again the following day and finished the week 6-for-23 with the two homers, a double and six RBIs.

 

THAT is the Royce Lewis we need to see, and the guy we hope he can still be. The same version flashed briefly around the All-Star break as well, but then disappeared. Unless we can see him sustain a reasonably solid level of play over the final five weeks, rather than reverting into a frazzled out-making machine, it’ll be hard to trust in Lewis as a cornerstone for 2026 and beyond. If he can’t find some sort of groove the rest of the way, I’ll be curious to see how the front office proceeds with their first-ever draft pick as they transition to a new core.

LOWLIGHTS

I’m not saying the samples are meaningful, because they’re not, but given the state of fan morale, it would really be nice if a single one of the new players acquired at the trade deadline could put forth a remotely favorable first impression. Instead we’ve repeatedly gotten the opposite. 

We saw outfielder Alan Roden (via Toronto) stumble out of the gates as a Twin, posting a .463 OPS and 13-to-0 K/BB ratio through his first 40 plate appearances before suffering a season-ending thumb injury. His replacement, James Outman (via Los Angeles) has not looked much better in sparse duty.

Over the weekend in Chicago, we got our first chance to see Abel (via Philadelphia) and Bradley (via Tampa), two starting pitchers who the Twins front office says they valued for their MLB-readiness. On successive days, the right-handers got blasted by a historically inept Chicago White Sox team, with Abel coughing up six earned runs in three innings on Saturday before Bradley allowed seven in five innings on Sunday. 

These were bad performances against a bad club. Yes, we’re talking about young pitchers here, but they aren’t that young. Bradley’s dud on Sunday was especially troubling, because he’s already got significant major-league experience (almost 70 starts) and was demoted by the Rays to Triple-A earlier this season, in large part because of the type of struggles with secondary pitches that we saw in Chicago. 

After coming over via trade and remaining in the minors, Bradley allowed 12 earned runs and 21 hits in 14 â…“ innings across three starts with the Saints. Then he came back up to the majors and got ambushed by one of the worst lineups in baseball. Bradley faced 24 hitters and struck out only one.

 

All that being said, with the starting rotation, I can see the vision. The Twins are stockpiling pitchers full of talent and intrigue, and as a team trying to compete on a budget, that’s what you’ve got to do. Hopefully, rocky outings like we saw from Abel and Bradley – not to mention Zebby Matthews, who got tuned up on Friday to round out this ugly mess of a series against the White Sox – are bumps on the road of nonlinear development. If you squint, you can also see how this pitching vision could translate eventually to a rebuilt bullpen, whittled out of a collection of ostensibly moldable arms that don’t end up as starters. 

The vision for an improved offense is much harder to see. This was another lousy week of production from Minnesota’s lineup, which was held to three or fewer runs in five of six games against two of the league’s worst pitching staffs. Aside from the flurry from Lee and the flash from Lewis, no one’s hitting at all. No one’s been hitting, no one seems like they’re gonna start hitting.

Trevor Larnach tallied one extra-base hit (a double) in 27 plate appearances. Matt Wallner went 3-for-16 with no walks. Outman struck out eight times in 14 at-bats. 

The idea of Kody Clemens turning himself into a factor for future planning has lost luster as he’s hurtled back to Earth in the second half; Clemens was 3-for-17 with no walks last week, and dating back to the All-Star break he’s batting .190 with only two homers. His on-base percentage for the season is down to .278 as he comes to resemble the expendable asset that Philadelphia placed on waivers back in April. 

Austin Martin started only three of Minnesota’s six games, which seems telling for a guy who is fighting to carve out a role on next year’s team. He went 1-for-12 with a single and a walk. It really feels like we’re already reaching the end of the line with Martin, and that might also be true of Edouard Julien, who made just two starts in six games. 

These aren’t exactly the most reassuring case studies for the organization’s hitting development staff, which will now be tasked with turning guys like Roden and Outman – not to mention the next upcoming wave of hitters – into impact contributors.

TRENDING STORYLINE

Are we watching the final starts from Joe Ryan in a Twins uniform? It’s a question that’s been looming in my mind since the deadline. As I watched his latest outing play out on Tuesday, the eventuality of an offseason Ryan trade felt more inevitable than ever before.

There’s a good chance the front office will be motivated to deal him by their own interests, given how their go-forward strategy is taking shape. It’s noteworthy that they were – by all accounts – open to trading Ryan at the deadline and reportedly came close to doing so with Boston. This is the definition of a sell-high opportunity, with Ryan coming off his first All-Star appearance at age 29 and still two years from free agency. 

Beyond the team’s whims, I’ve got to think it’s highly likely Ryan himself will push to be moved. I don’t say this with any negativity directed toward him, and if it’s how he feels, I wouldn’t blame him at all. Never mind what a bummer it is to be playing your peak years for a team that’s not even trying to win – the horrendous state of this ballclub actually threatens to put his earnings at risk.

While Royce Lewis’s comments to media this past week about prioritizing his personal statistics might have landed poorly, there is undeniable validity in his sentiment. Baseball isn’t fun and games for these guys; their livelihoods are on the line. The urgency is most intense for guys like Lewis and Ryan who are still at the arbitration stage, a couple years out from free agency, still targeting that generational payday. 

Ryan didn’t pitch as badly as his line on Tuesday – 4 IP, 5 ER – suggests. He was let down by a godawful Twins defense that missed multiple plays they should have made behind him, even if they weren’t ruled errors. The negative effects of this hapless defensive unit, which was not sharp even before jettisoning several of its best gloves at the deadline, are fully felt by Ryan: the earned runs charged, the extra arm stress from long innings, the shortened outings.

Meanwhile, you’ve got a Twins offense that routinely offers no run support, depriving him of potential wins and chances to pitch deeper into games. And on top of it, a stripped-down bullpen that is liable to let opponents cash in any stranded runners that Ryan happens to leave aboard. I see no convincing reason to believe any of these things will get substantially better next year.

Putting yourself in Ryan’s shoes, wouldn’t you want out? I’m afraid the non-contending Twins will be all too acquiescent to any such request. Maybe it’s the right move, given where things are at now. But even if we are looking at the final handful of starts from Joe Ryan in a Twins uniform – especially if we are – it’s critical for him to finish this season effective and healthy, leaving no doubt regarding his outlook for next year and beyond. That is the one nut Ryan hasn’t been able to crack in his big-league career so far.

He’ll have his work cut out for him as he kicks off the next week against an elite Blue Jays offense.

LOOKING AHEAD

After dropping back-to-back series against last-place teams, the Twins now will run into a pair of first-place teams. I hate to say it but things might get considerably uglier in the week ahead. The Blue Jays and Padres are two of the best in baseball, and they’ve been playing very well. The Twins right now look like genuinely the worst team in the majors. At least there will be some pitching probables worth checking out when the team returns home to Target Field next weekend.

MONDAY, AUGUST 25: TWINS @ BLUE JAYS — RHP Joe Ryan v. RHP Max Scherzer
TUESDAY, AUGUST 26: TWINS @ BLUE JAYS — RHP Bailey Ober v. RHP Chris Bassitt
WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 27: TWINS @ BLUE JAYS — RHP Zebby Matthews v. LHP Eric Lauer
FRIDAY, AUGUST 29: PADRES @ TWINS — LHP Nestor Cortes v. RHP Mick Abel
SATURDAY, AUGUST 30: PADRES @ TWINS — RHP Nick Pivetta v. RHP Taj Bradley
SUNDAY, AUGUST 31: PADRES @ TWINS — TBD v. RHP Joe Ryan

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