Of all teams to go from completely joyless to an atom bomb in a matter of weeks, I was not expecting the Minnesota Twins. The last time I checked their WAR leaders to make a custom, there was a lot of shrugging. 'Matt Wallner I guess'. 'Harrison Bader's got a high WAR at least'. Like I didn't get many definitive answers about who was actually leading this team, or where the energy was coming from.
On April 20th, they were 7-15. Now they are 26-21. Something clicked. And as evidenced by that 13-game winning streak, whatever the team hadn't found in the first month of play is powering this team now. But two elements are important here- the Twins being able to go on a 13-game streak, and the Brewers being the team to beat it.
Looking at this run, 7 of these wins were against teams that have been pretty good this season. Two wins against the Red Sox, kicking off the streak, a sweep of the Giants, and two wins against the Brewers to end the sweep. And that's honestly more than I expected, because sometimes when these streaks happen, it's the result of a swatch of scheduling decisions that benefit the streaking team, and a lot of bad teams just lining up. But the Twins going on a 13-game winning streak does not reflect having to play a lot of bad teams. There's only one bad team they really played in this stretch...and it is the Baltimore Orioles. Who they took 6 games from in the span of a week. If you want to root the Brandon Hyde firing to anything, it may have been the two Twins sweeps in a week, including 1 shutout.
And it's not like, even during the streak, the Twins were this overpowering monolith with no flaws. 6 of those wins were within 2 or less runs. Two of them came in Simeon-Woods-Richardson starts where he gave up the entirety of the opposing teams' runs. In fact, sending Woods-Richardson down to bring up Zebby Matthews was the move that led to the end of the streak. Maybe if they'd have gone with David Festa it'd still be going on?
And you also have to take into account that during this streak, there was a notorious collision between Byron Buxton and Carlos Correa which led to both being out on concussion protocol. Once again, Buxton and Correa were having terrific seasons, and they just have the worst luck getting through a season without a calamity like this befalling them. Buxton's been incredible, with 10 homers and 27 RBIs, plus he's reliable in center once again. Correa's numbers were just ticking up before his injury break. That's two crucial pieces of the lineup right there, and it illuminates how reluctant a lot of the other guys are to step up. Royce Lewis is only hitting .205, Brooks Lee's only hitting .250, Carson McCusker hasn't lit up yet. There was promise with Luke Keaschall but he immediately got hurt. The pitching is strong enough, and the power core is reliable enough, that a lot of very meh seasons have led this team to 2nd place. They can grow past it and continue at this pace if people start truly stepping up, but that'll take a bit more from Trevor Larnach and Ryan Jeffers.
Now, as for the Brewers ending the streak, it illuminates that despite some of the rough luck the Brewers have had recently, they're still inherently a good team. Right now Jackson Chourio is only hitting .242, Christian Yelich's comeback has been forgettable, Joey Ortiz and Caleb Durbin aren't hitting, Brandon Woodruff still isn't back yet, and the team is in fourth. A huge chunk of what made this team playoff-ready last year is either missing or ineffective, and a lot of other competitors have been taking 2 or more from them on a regular basis.
The most worrying factor in the Brewers' 2025 season thus far has been the impact the rookies have had on this team. So far this season, the Brewers have called up Caleb Durbin, Oliver Dunn, Chad Patrick, Logan Henderson and Craig Yoho. Five really big organizational pieces. Only Patrick and Henderson have made much of an impact, and in a season where Woodruff, Quintana, Civale and Cortes have had injury issues, it's a very good thing. Henderson's won both his starts so far, and has a 2.45 ERA, while Patrick has taken on the Tobias Myers role of 'rookie workhorse' [which...maybe go easy on him next year], and has a 3.35 ERA through 9 starts. But Durbin's struggled, Dunn once again could hit nothing on an MLB stint, and Yoho struggled mightily in 5 relief appearances. Jefferson Quero is still on the 40-man, and honestly they should wait til he's ready given all of that.
Yet there are still pieces of this team capable of greatness. Rhys Hoskins is getting hot, raising his average to .288 with 5 homers and 25 RBIs. Brice Turang is also hitting .288 with 12 steals. Abner Uribe, finally healthy has lived up to the hype and has been a terrific setup man. And once again, Freddy Peralta, the last of the big three standing at the moment, has taken the ace status without cowering, with a 5-3 record, a 2.59 ERA and 57 Ks. Recently he struck out his 1000th batter, and as his 30th birthday approaches he's still one of the most reliable and consistent strikeout artists in the game.
If the Twins, with all their flaws, are good enough to go on a 13-game winning streak, it's only fitting that another flawed-but-decent team like the Brewers would be the team to end it. These things have a habit of balancing out.
Coming Tomorrow- His dad was a contact machine at short for a low-level competitor, but at least that team wasn't playing in a minor league park.
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