Twins keep hanging around

TWINS 11

ATHLETICS 8

The 2026 Twins are becoming a rollercoaster. As soon as they seem to have figured it out, they fall apart. As soon as they appear finished, they bounce back. 

Sunday's game against the Homeless A's on a blazingly hot day at Target Field (official high of 99°) has them back on an upswing.

Joe Ryan was supposed to start, but got scratched. In his place was Connor Prielipp, a rookie who has shown some flashes. He really flashed today, allowing just 2 baserunners through 5, and facing the minimum.

The Twins lineup, which has largely struggled since the break, jumped on the A's quickly, plating 3 each in the 1st 2 innings with a fun combo of clutch 2 out hitting and sharp baserunning. In the 2nd, with the bases loaded, it looked like Byron Buxton had lined into an inning ending double play. But on review, Brooks Lee's heads up dive back into 2nd was in time, keeping that inning alive. It proved a huge play, cause right after the A's balked in a run, and then Ryan Jeffers got a 2 run single. Lee's awareness resulted in 3 runs. 

The Twins were up 7-0 into the 6th, and Prielipp was an out away from finishing 6 shutout innings. But then Derek Shelton had to go and get cute. There was no reason to pull Prielipp up 7 runs with 2 out, but probably some spreadsheet said differently. Out goes Prielipp, in comes the just activated Cole Sands, who hadn't pitched in months. 2 batters later, Nick Kurtz had sent one into the bullpen, and a breeze of a game was suddenly a grind.

Fortunately, the Twins' resurgent bats kept going. They tacked on 1 each in the 6th and 7th and 2 in the 8th. All game long, they benefitted from some truly laughable fielding from the A's. A merciful official scorer only tagged them with 4 errors, but they easily could have had 6.

The Twins bullpen refused to make it easy. Sands loaded the bases with nobody out in the 7th. Tommy Nance walked a run in, and gave up a couple of run scoring outs. Then the A's knocked a couple runs in off Travis Adams in the 9th. All this mess cause Shelton couldn't just let Prielipp get 1 more out.

The Twins manged 11 runs without a homerun, and with a combined 1 for 10 from Buxton and Lewis. But Jeffers, Ryan Kreidler, and Kody Clemens all had big games.

So the Twins have won 4 of 5, after losing 4 of 5 out of the break. One game under .500 does not have them in a playoff spot as it did 2 weeks ago. The red hot Red Sox have passed them. But that 3rd wild card is still very much in play, with the Twins just a game back of Cleveland. The division is not unthinkable, but the White Sox still haven't slumped.

The last 5 games have probably rescued the Twins from another tear down at the deadline, which is a week away. But after years of seeing little to nothing done to add to better teams, it seems likely the front office won't make major additions. They need relievers. We all know this. If they get a couple, to add to the few decent arms they have, maybe they can grab a playoff spot.

Just make sure to keep your arms inside the vehicle at all times.