The Twins dropped two quick games in the AL Wild Card to Houston, losing 4-1 Tuesday, and 3-1 Wednesday. The COVID shortened season comes to a close. Here are our five takeaways following the loss.
Postseason woes continue
OK, enough is enough. It’s been 16 years and a brilliant Johan Santana start in Yankee Stadium since the Twins have won a post season game. It hasn’t been just a few games either. 18 straight losses which is a major sports record and a gut-punch to Twins fans.
Is this is a full-on curse at this point? You’d think the Twins would just get lucky and win a game. Not to be in 2020.
That 2002 win over Oakland in the ALDS is a very long time ago.
It was a strange, short season
60 games isn’t much time to know a lot about your team. The Twins had some ups and downs, but enough ups to sneak away with the Central Division. The Astros stumbled into the playoffs.
The truth is, we didn’t really know much about either team. The Twins bats were nowhere near as deadly as last year’s Bomba Squad but it was shocking to see them go completely silent in the postseason. Yes, injuries caught up with the team especially losing Donaldson and then Buxton for game two. But there are enough good hitters left to at least scratch out some runs.
The Astros have a ton of postseason experience. That won out. They got great work out of their bullpen while the Twins didn’t get enough outs from theirs.
There were also way too many mistakes. Polanco's error, Buxton's baserunning mistake, and pop-out after pop-out. It wasn't good enough.
Then you have the aspect of living in a bubble, schedules that were full of doubleheaders as MLB tried to squeeze in every game in two months and the general weirdness of trying to play during a pandemic. Weird year.
Nelson Cruz
He’s the senior member of this team. And he’s a free agent. The only player to drive in a run in the series against Houston too.
Will the Twins pony up the cash to keep him? All reports were that they didn’t get close to a multi-year deal with him in the offseason. That's what Cruz wants.
Some team is likely going to offer him a two-year deal. Will the Twins match it?
It might be that Cruz’s time in Minnesota is over, but it would be a mistake. Cruz still has gas in the tank as he has proven.
Kirilloff makes his debut
The highly touted outfielder finally made his debut. In the playoffs no less. He became the first player in MLB history to collect his first big league hit in the postseason. He also hit the ball hard a couple of other times, plus made a nice sliding catch in the outfield.
It appears Kirilloff’s time has come when the 2021 season begins. It’s just a matter of who the odd-man out is in the Twins’ outfield.
The guess here is Kirilloff-Buxton-Kepler is the group (along with Rooker) and the team may try to move Eddie Rosario who made a horrible decision arguing with the umpire late in game two that lead to his ejection. Eddie has been great at times, but there are still a lot of mistakes. The rumor before 2020 was Eddie could be done. It seems like that bill has now come due.
What should be the 2021 expectations for this team?
There will be a retooling of sorts. The team has some free agent decisions to make, they’ll likely try to move Rosario. There will be some new names in the lineup and pitching staff. Certainly some from the farm system. Maybe another free agent or two.
The regular season, as far as fans are concerned, doesn’t matter anymore. It’s all about the postseason now. The Twins have something to prove and it has to start equaling some postseason success.
