DENVER -- The Twins were brutally honest about the situation they’re facing after losing to the Rockies, 10-6, on Saturday night at Coors Field -- their second consecutive loss to the club with the worst record in the Majors.
For a team that is 11 1/2 games out of first place in their division and five games back of a Wild Card spot, anything else would probably feel disingenuous.
“It's hard, because you want to always be in it, you want to fight for the playoffs,” said catcher Ryan Jeffers. “But as it continues to go, we're continuing to not win games we should win. … You start to look at the mountain you have to climb, and we think we have the ability in this locker room to do that climb and get to the playoffs and win playoff games.
“But we've got to play better baseball.”
Inconsistency has been the theme for the 2025 Twins, who at one point reeled off 13 straight wins but at others have looked lackluster, particularly on the road -- with Saturday’s loss, Minnesota has lost 11 of its last 14 away from Target Field, as well as five consecutive road series.
And while the names on the roster can inspire confidence and key players on the injured list are nearing a return, time is not on the Twins’ side.
With 12 days remaining before the July 31 Trade Deadline, the club remains in limbo as to whether it will buy, sell or do some of both. Is this a group that can make a run over the final two months of the season, or is it a team that needs to move on from some of its players on expiring contracts?
Prior to Saturday’s defeat, third baseman Royce Lewis was candid about his individual struggles at the plate this year, saying that he feels his swing is slightly different from years past but he doesn’t know quite how, and that his body may be compensating for recent injuries when he’s in the batter’s box.
He was also straightforward about what from the outside would seem to be mounting pressure on the ballclub at a pivotal moment in the season.
“I look at this team and the lineup and everything and … on paper, I think any writer or executive would say ‘This is probably the best team in the division on paper,’” Lewis said. “You see the bullpen, you see all the pieces you have there. There’s a reason why there are a lot of rumors about people wanting our players.”
The pieces certainly seem to be there. Byron Buxton is having the finest campaign of his career, finally healthy and putting up prodigious numbers. But others, like Lewis, shortstop Carlos Correa and outfielders Matt Wallner and Trevor Larnach, aren’t producing as they’re accustomed to.
On the pitching side, the club has a pair of frontline starters in All-Star Joe Ryan and right-hander Pablo López. But the latter has been on the IL, as has right-hander Bailey Ober. And as was evident on Friday and Saturday, the going can be tough when the task of keeping the rotation afloat falls to Chris Paddack, Zebby Matthews and others.
As Correa, who has been to the mountaintop before, intimated after Saturday’s loss, pieces are great, but pieces themselves don’t qualify you for the postseason.
“The bottom line is we gotta play better baseball, and we haven't been able to do that consistently this year,” said the 2017 World Series champion. “So there's 60-some games left, and we’ve gotta figure out a way to put ourselves in a better position. And everybody in this clubhouse -- coaching staff, everybody in here -- we’ve gotta do better. We're not doing a good job."
The clock is ticking. Will the Twins sell off some pieces at the Deadline? Or might Minnesota, as Lewis suggested, follow in the footsteps of the division-rival Tigers, who were in virtually the same position at this time last year as the Twins are now -- 11 games back of first place and five games out in the Wild Card race?
The Twins hope their sober and unvarnished assessment of their current predicament leads to a quick turnaround.
“We've got to win baseball games if we're going to do that, and we're not,” Jeffers said. “We were doing that before the break and put up two duds to start the second half.
“[Twelve] days from now, we'll find out what direction we go.”