Minnesota Twins must fight the fret, manager Rocco Baldelli says

ATLANTA - Rocco Baldelli knows the Twins are 7-15, understands this is the second-worst start to a season the Twins have ever endured, grasps how urgent the need has become to start winning with regularity.

He just wishes his players didn’t.

“When you want to do something so bad, it gets harder to do. We can’t worry about what happened last week or what happened yesterday,” Baldelli preached after the Atlanta Braves finished off their sweep of the Twins on Sunday. “You can’t play the game worried. You can’t play the game concerned you didn’t get it done the last time. This is a forward-looking game.”

Maybe so, but every time the Twins think they’re moving forward — taking two of three games from the New York Mets last week, for example — they seem to sputter to a stop once again. And he’s concerned his players are making mistakes of emotion.

“Frustration can build sometimes. I can’t say that’s why we’re not getting it done … but this series, we didn’t have any balls find any grass when we needed it,” Baldelli said, citing the Twins’ 10 baserunners but zero run-scoring hits behind them Sunday. “Listen, this has not been an easy go of it by any means, and we’re going to have to continue to fight offensively, to find ourselves and work through it, to figure it out.”

It’s natural to put pressure on yourself, confirmed Joe Ryan, who had given up only six runs in his first four starts but gave up six more Sunday.

“Definitely. That makes it even more frustrating,” Ryan said. “It’s not going our way right now, so you want to have a good outing every fifth day. To have a bad one today, it [hurts].”

Justin Topa got a call from his wife Saturday with an urgent question: “What do you mean you’re starting?"

“Yeah, took me by surprise, too,” Topa said. “It had been a few years.”

Almost seven, in fact, since Topa, then in the Texas Rangers system, made a late-season start in Zebulon, N.C., for the Class A Down East Wood Ducks. He allowed eight runs to the Carolina Mudcats in that game Aug. 20, 2018, “definitely a start to forget,” he said with a laugh.

But he will remember his first big league start, even though it lasted only one inning and 24 pitches. He served as an opener for Simeon Woods Richardson, and though he regrets giving up a run, “I was able to limit the damage and get out of it. Just threw a 3-2 slider to [Matt] Olson that got a little too much of the plate.”

It was an interesting experience, too. Baldelli didn’t notify him of his role until 3:30 p.m., so he didn’t have time to obsess over it, he said. And while it was a learning experience, “I think I’d rather not know when I’m going to pitch,” Topa said. “I’m used to, there’s a phone call, now get up and get moving pretty quickly. That’s my routine, and I’m comfortable with it.”

Still, the 34-year-old righthander is ready if the Twins choose to use an opener again.

“I’ve always said, wherever you want me, I’ll throw any situation,” Topa said. “Now I check that one off, and if there’s another, it’ll be a little easier.”

Christian Vázquez’s biggest regret about his 14-pitch at-bat against lefthander Dylan Lee on Saturday, the longest of his 11-year big league career? Well, except for not getting a hit?

“I didn’t have a timeout. I wasted it on, like, the fourth pitch,” Vázquez said. “Another pitch, another pitch, another pitch …”

The eight-foul-ball marathon in the eighth inning finally ended with a shallow fly ball to center. It dropped Vázquez to 3-for-30 on the season, a horrific start. But he said he hopes it marks the beginning of the end of his slump.

“I was seeing the ball good. I was making good contact,” the 34-year-old catcher said. “I feel like I’m going to be fine. It’s too early to panic.”

• Catcher Ryan Jeffers was hit on his right forearm by a pitch Sunday but said he’s OK. “Got me right over my elbow guard and kind of deadened my hand,” he said, with ice on the wound. “But it’ll be fine by Tuesday.”

• The St. Paul Saints’ game Sunday at Iowa was postponed because of rain. The teams will make up the game the next time the Saints are in Des Moines, May 13-18. Thanks to postponements, the Saints have five doubleheaders on the schedule this season and will surpass the franchise record of four played in 2024.