It’s hard to imagine a bunch that needs a break from baseball right now more than the Twins. Well, unless it’s their fans.
A disgruntled majority of the announced 27,100 at Target Field loudly expressed their displeasure at the home team several times on Sunday, and with good reason. The Twins’ 15-2 loss, their most lopsided blowout in Target Field since 2018, left them staggering into the All-Star break with a losing record (45-46) and in second place.
Off an embarrassing sweep by the Orioles, too, the first time that’s happened in the Twin Cities since 2011. By beating the Twins for the fourth time in eight days, Baltimore won the season series for the first time since 2016, four games to two, and scored as many runs in Sunday’s finale as the Twins managed in their six meetings combined.
The Twins offense was all but nonexistent once more, managing only four hits and, for the fifth time in six games against the Orioles, fewer than three runs. They went 0-for-6 with runners in scoring position, bringing them to 1-for-23 in this weekend’s series and 5-for-40 in the six games against Baltimore, all coming over the past two weekends.
That made things easy for Orioles starter Kyle Gibson, the longtime Twins pitcher whose 33rd career victory at Target Field tied Jose Berrios for most in the ballpark’s history. Gibson struck out 11 over seven innings, and gave up just two runs, both of them driven in by Edouard Julien. The rookie doubled home Carlos Correa in the first inning, giving the Twins a brief lead, and hit a solo home run into the Orioles’ bullpen in the sixth, when the game was long since decided.
But for a change — though not exactly for the better — hitting was hardly the Twins’ biggest problem this time. Instead, their lack of bullpen depth behind Jhoan Duran and Griffin Jax was exposed, exploited and, well, exploded.
Joe Ryan struck out 10 of the first 15 hitters he faced, though home runs by Austin Hays and Ramón Urías put the Twins in a hole. And when the righthander, who has given up 13 runs in the 13⅓ innings he has pitched since his complete-game shutout last month, reached 98 pitches by issuing one-out walks to Adley Rutschman and Anthony Santander in the fifth inning, he was removed.
Chaos ensued.
Jovani Moran faced four batters, and three of them scored, the last on Aaron Hicks’ 409-foot blast high into the right-field seats. Emilio Pagan relieved him, and though he surrendered a triple to Jordan Westburg, Pagan ended the seven-run inning with no more damage.
Cole Sands was handed the sixth inning, and the boos grew loud when he allowed six of seven batters to reach base, including back-to-back home cannon-shot home runs by Rutschman and Santander. Sands was charged with six runs when Jordan Balazovic entered and gave up a pair of run-scoring singles. A couple innings later, Santander connected again, this time off Balazovic, just to add to the Twins’ misery.