'We're still in a great position': Twins believe they'll bounce back (2024)

MINNEAPOLIS -- It’s time to find out what these 2024 Minnesota Twins are really made of.

There are two ways this thing can go from here, and the Twins have seen both endings. In 2022, they went 11-22 from Sept. 1 onward to skid out of postseason contention. In ‘23, they went 18-10 in that final stretch to assert their claim to the AL Central title.

With Tuesday night’s 8-6 loss to the Braves in 10 innings at Target Field, the Twins took their seventh loss in nine games, with the malaise magnified by the four losses in which they took big late gut punches. This most recent one included, thanks to the frenzied late-innings comeback that sent the game to extras in the first place before the let-down of the 10th inning.

For really the first time, a group governed by its fixation on the big picture acknowledged the urgency as marathon turns to sprint, from the postgame meeting manager Rocco Baldelli called after Monday’s loss to less consequential things like his scratching out the little note reminding players to “Be Humble” at the press conference podium and rewriting it to “Be Hungry.”

Now, how will Minnesota respond?

“Listen, we can do it,” Baldelli said. “I’ve seen it, I’ve seen this group do it. I’ve seen us do it without all of our best players on the field, our top guys. … We’ve won tons of games this year and played great, not with our entire group out there.

“And so we have to do it again. We have to dig down deep and muster it up, and do it.”

It’s not that a turnaround seems altogether far away, as borne out by the manner of four of those losses now -- two huge bullpen implosions that turned victory into defeat on the last road trip, an Edouard Julien defensive misplay that completely flipped Sunday’s ninth inning, and Tuesday’s loss, in which a pent-up Minnesota offense had no shortage of opportunities.

Yes, the Twins can point to misfortunes, like Ryan Jeffers’ liner up the middle seemingly destined to be a run-scoring hit that turned into a carom off the pitcher and a popout.

But they’re not without fault, like when Max Kepler pulled up at third instead of heeding the green light to score on a double, or Julien’s aforementioned error. A team that played remarkably clean for much of the season is letting that slip away.

“As the season comes toward the end, there’s a lot more pressure on everything that happens,” Jeffers said. “Whether it’s just simply not executing or a little sloppy baseball here or there … it’s really hard when these games are as valuable as they are.”

This isn’t the Twins’ final form, of course. Carlos Correa, Byron Buxton and Brooks Lee are still down with injury and on various timeframes to return -- and all are expected to do so. But every club is dealing with injuries; just ask the guys in the other dugout, who are missing Spencer Strider, Ronald Acuña Jr., Ozzie Albies and Austin Riley.

The Twins’ bullpen is on fumes, but will almost certainly soon gain Louie Varland as a back-end reinforcement. There’s perhaps less of an immediate way to address that, but it’s the group they’ve got.

“There's a lot of things you can point fingers at,” Jeffers said. “But at the end of the day, we believe in this team and we know we've got to play better.”

What Minnesota does still have is opportunity. As tough as this last week and a half has been for the Twins, they’ve only lost a half-game in the standings thanks to an equally tough run for the Guardians. Though the Royals are now tied atop the division, they’re in the midst of perhaps the most grueling stretch of schedule in the Majors.

But postgame meetings, wishful scoreboard-watching and talk can only do so much. The Twins still have time. They know both of those things -- and ultimately, what remains will come down to what this group has when it digs deep.

“I actually think, despite the feeling right now, that we’re not winning games and it feels crappy when you play like that, we’re still in a great position,” Baldelli said. “We still have a very good group of players that we just need to start well together and I think we’ll be in a good place.

“But we’ve got to do that and actually make it happen. Not just talk about it.”