Nowhere Duran

 

I dunno, something about these Baldelli Twins teams always have a way of balancing out. From April 20th to May 20th, the Twins won 20 games, the majority of them consecutive. Then since June 4th they've lost 13. They were so good in May that even two of their biggest stars getting concussions only slowed down a little, and now the wheels are falling off. First Zebby Matthews gets hurt, which...I mean, sure, but then Royce Lewis gets hurt, which happens so frequently that there's gotta be a way of preventing it at this point. And now the Twins are back in fourth, which is where they were before they went on the winning streak. There is no middle ground for these guys, they're either on fire or listless.

The issue, inherently, is that the 'background players holding up the team' thing that powered the team in May is now dead. The walls have collapsed. You've now got a lot of guys with .8 WARs running around trying to be helpful. Kody Clemens, despite a lot of offensive production, is hitting .223. Trevor Larnach, despite his 35 RBIs, still can't stop striking out. Wallner just keeps refusing to be the guy. Even Carlos Correa is providing mediocrity, only hitting .246 with 22 RBIs so far. Yes, Buxton and Bader and Castro ensure this team can have an edge, but the varied cast of ensemble players, while helpful in a streak, stand out as unhelpful during a slide. It's beginning to feel like this team really is wasting one of Buxton's fullest and most confident seasons in years, and it's kind of upsetting.

The same can also be said for a dominant campaign from Jhoan Duran, who hasn't been this unhittable since his rookie season in 2022. He's currently got a 1.62 ERA, 10 saves and 39 Ks. Just a dominant, hard-to-get-around closing option, and arguably an improvement over Taylor Rogers. Like a lot of closers these days, Duran is prone to down seasons and stretches, but he's looking better than he has in a while. The bullpen in general is in pretty good shape at the moment as well, even if there's a few too many guys with 4 ERAs. And it just feels like it's for nothing because A.) the lineup has too many places without production and B.) the rotation, aside from Joe Ryan, just feels uninspired right now. 

It's gotta be frustrating for the fans as well. This team felt so exciting and promising before. If this streak had happened in September there'd be playoff hopes and a run and it might lead to something, but it happened midyear and it was surrounded by much more crucial losing stretches. So unless all of this is leading to a much longer, and more sustainable, hot streak, all that may have been for nothing. 

Coming Tomorrow- A couple years ago, the Pirates started billing Oneil Cruz as this all-time talent, a guy who could do anything and hit laser beams and revitalize baseball. And that hasn't exactly happened. But then the Reds brought up this other guy...