The Minnesota Twins arrived in Iowa for the Field of Dreams game on Thursday night with enthusiasm and vigor, and the desire to play a great ballgame in a hallowed place, for the good of the game. That was the last bit of positivity the Twinsd experienced. They lost three games to the Phillies, a better team but one the Twins could have very easily spoiled, and now they're in fourth place, trailing the Tigers and Guardians and struggling to keep in the race. It certainly looks like the Phillies found themselves in Iowa, and the Twins lost the plot.
The big 'what are we even doing?' moment came during yesterday's game, which was going great for the Twins for a while due to the Phils starting Andrew Painter [due to lack of other options, and thanks again for that Dombrowski]. Brooks Lee hit a grandy, Kody Clemens [the former Phillie] hit a solo shot, it was 5-0 for five innings. Then in the sixth, Luis Arraez got a guy home and Alec Bohm, hot as hell recently, rocketed one out to make it 5-4. Which it remained. And it honestly could have stayed.
In the eighth, Bohm was up again, with three men on, and hit one to shallow right. Royce Lewis and Luke Keaschall congregated towards the ball, as it seemed to skirt the line between foul and fair. Lewis lets it bounce, it lands fair. He tries to grab the ball, it flies right out of his hands, and Keaschall doesn't have the reflexes to stop it from rolling off, so it bonks off his glove, as balls tend to be doing these days. Harper's able to get home on that, tying the game. Three batters later, Bryan de la Cruz smokes a ball through and 2 more runs score, and the Phils' bullpen ensure it doesn't get worse than that.
So...let's examine this. We have Royce Lewis and Luke Keaschall collaborating on that play to shallow right. Keaschall is predominantly a second baseman, he's in right because they wanted to start Kody Clemens at second, they already had him in left and Ryan Kreidler at second. Royce Lewis is predominantly used as a third baseman, but Brooks Lee was at third. So you have two guys not playing their primary positions acting like the Keystone Kops out there and bombing the game. I'd understand it if the production was worth it to keep all these guys in the lineup, but Keaschall did nothing at the plate and Lewis got one hit.
Lewis in general is having a pretty meh season honestly. The novelty of the longballs is done because Lewis stays healthy for longer and hits less homers. He's got 13 homers, 44 RBIs, 11 steals, he's fine. Better in the last month or so than he was before that, but he's not blowing the doors off the place, making him a somewhat limp 1st overall guy. He's still doing what he can, and when the production's on point it's not a problem, but some of his dimensions have been taken away and there's not much to him that other guys can't already bring. The good news is Kaelen Culpepper is up and auditioning for SS for 2027 [?], Keaschall seems to be a lock for the team going forward, Byron Buxton's still elite and the central core is likely sticking around for the most part to build on this going forward. There's the worry that Joe Ryan could leave in free agency, and the knowledge that Ryan Jeffers will, but unless they really start dealing people, which could happen to guys like Wallner and Larnach if they're not careful, I don't see them going full crumple and toss next year if enough of this team can really chase people.
Anyhow, shame about what happened to the Twins this weekend. It could have been avoided. Someday it might get to be avoided.
Coming Tonight: Similar to Lewis, he gets injured, misses a swath of the season and tries to make up for it. This year worked out similarly to the last few for him.






