The Twins left Target Field last week, feeling good about themselves after taking two straight from the New York Mets and winning just their second series of the season. The landed in Atlanta Friday hoping to add to that winning streak. That looked good for 7-innings.
A five-spot by Atlanta in the bottom of the eight meant a loss opportunity and a 6-4 loss. That momentum then carried through the rest of the weekend, two straight losses and a sweep by the Braves which has the Twins licking their wounds again, wondering how to break through offensively.
Matt Olson and Drake Baldwin hit two-run homers, Grant Holmes allowed only one run and the Braves beat the Minnesota Twins 6-2 on Sunday to complete the sweep.
"Challenging day all the way around today, for us," Twins manager Rocco Baldelli said. "Had some opportunities offensively, got some guys on, worked the at-bats, drew some walks, had some well struck balls. But we know when when the guys get out there and they're they're on the bases and in position, gotta bring (them) around. It's not the entire story, but it matters and it's a big story."
Marcell Ozuna also homered off Twins starter Joe Ryan (1-3), who allowed six runs and eight hits and one walk in five innings.
Baldelli thinks the team is at a point where they're pressing too hard.
"Everyone wants to do something. Maybe you want to do something so bad that that gets gets harder to do," he says. "But we can't worry about what happened last week or what happened yesterday. When we show up on Tuesday, really, you you can't play the game worried. You can't play the game concerned that you didn't get it done last time. This is a forward looking game and and we have to continue to work hard."
The Twins are no 7-15 and just can't seem to get any consistency at the plate or on the mound.
"Listen, this has not been an easy go of it by any means," Baldelli adds. "And we're gonna have to continue to fight offensively to find ourselves, and to work through it to figure it out and to to score runs."
One player that does have it going is Byron Buxton who had two of the team's five hits, including a home run off right-hander Enyel De Los Santos.
And it's not like Atlanta had been playing well. The Braves had not won back-to-back games before sweeping the Twins.
Baldelli says it's definitely frustrating the team.
"Frustration, it can build sometimes," he says. "I can't tell you that's why we're not getting it done though. The guys are going up there and getting on and and finding a way to make something happen, start some sort of rally, get something going. This series though, we just didn't - we didn't have the the the swings and the balls in play in those spots to find any grass and to find any space when we needed it."
Key moment
The Braves jumped on Ryan in the first inning. Ozuna walked with two outs before Olson hit his third homer off the top of the wall in center field. Baldwin hit his two-run shot in the third.
Key stat
The Braves’ first five runs were scored with two outs.
Up next
The Twins are off on Monday and open a home series against the Chicago White Sox on Tuesday night. Manager Rocco Baldelli left open the possibility RHP Pablo López (strained right hamstring) could come off the 15-day injured list and join the rotation this week following his “solid outing” for Triple-A St. Paul on Saturday.
“We will sit down and assess what the rotation looks like this week,” Baldelli said before the game.