Much like the letters on the back of Simeon Woods Richardson's jersey, the AL Central race was going to come down to everything trying to fit on a limited space. The Twins, rather than hanging around the sides of the number, were dropped from the playoffs entirely.
Quite obviously it wasn't due to a lack of effort. All throughout this team you saw supporting players coming through in big roles. Matt Wallner, Trevor Larnach, Bailey Ober, Griffin Jax, Willi Castro, Royce Lewis honestly. One of the biggest stories of the year was Jose Miranda going from a second or third stringer to a streaking everyday hitter. Then by the end you had Austin Martin, Kyle Farmer and Manuel Margot going. The reason why you pack a team with so many strong options is so that any of them can come through. And that was the joy of this Twins team during the brunt of this season. A uniformly solid team where it didn't have to be all on the designated heroes.
I look at the rotation, where it was inferred that Joe Ryan and Pablo Lopez would have the most responsibilities this year. And those two did fine, even if Lopez's ERA was high for a lot of the year. But the real stars of the rotation were people like Bailey Ober, with a 12-8 record and a 3.94 ERA, and Simeon Woods Richardson, with 117 strikeouts. These were two depth options that hadn't done a TON in years past, and this year they did so much right. Woods Richardson was just waiting for his moment to land in a rotation spot, and despite some late struggles he did pretty well for himself, and might be asked back in 2025. David Festa and Zebby Matthews, though not perfect, do hold some promise for next year as well.
But...the main reason this team didn't make the playoffs is that, while so much was accomplished by the unsung guys and the depth guys, the real heroes of this team didn't always come through. Byron Buxton missed a nice chunk of the season, but that could have been predicted. Carlos Correa, in the midst of an incredible season, gets hurt and doesn't come back til late September. Max Kepler goes on a tear and then he gets hurt. Royce Lewis hits a ton of homers, gets hurt, comes back, hits more homers and...evens out. This was a season where Buxton, Correa, Kepler, Lewis, Joe Ryan and Alex Kirilloff missed substantial time. And...with no disrespect to the other guys, that is your team right there. It shouldn't be down to Bailey Ober making all of his starts, or Carlos Santana and Willi Castro leading the team in games played. You're on the marquee for a reason, you've got to lead the team, or else the foundation's gonna give way.
And that's what happened. This team figured it out in June, and then Correa and Buxton got hurt and they fell off again. And they'll be finishing the season in fourth, a season after a playoff victory, meaning that once again, Rocco Baldelli is incapable of instilling consistent success into these Twins. It's glory one year, tragedy the next.
The Twins hopefully can use this to return to competition next year, and will do so hopefully with more consistency from their key players. But if this sort of late implosion happens again, I'm not sure Baldelli will keep his job.
Coming Tomorrow- One last opportunity to talk about how close the Red Sox came to greatness.
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