It gives me no great pleasure to do this, but as someone who enjoys numbers and what they can tell us about sports, I think I have found the single statistic that defines the last 16 games of futility for the Twins.
Here it is, leading off the 10 things you need to know today in Minnesota sports:
- Infielder Jonah Bride has come in to pitch in a game the Twins trailed four times since June 5, the first game of the Twins’ dismal 3-13 stretch and not coincidentally the second game they played without injured ace Pablo López. Star reliever Jhoan Duran has come in to pitch in a game the Twins led three times in that span. Yes, the Twins have had more occasions to use their mop-up infielder on the mound in the last 2½ weeks than to deploy their 100-mph dynamo in a save situation.
- David Festa, a young pitcher thought to be part of the depth that could help the Twins withstand the loss of López, has given up 20 earned runs over 18 innings in four appearances since López was hurt. He was tagged for eight earned runs in Sunday’s loss to Milwaukee.
- Saturday’s game ended with Brooks Lee at the plate. He has been a silver lining during this awful stretch, but his 19-game hitting streak ended as he made the final out of a 9-0 loss on a strikeout. Worse than that, he watched as the ball bounced away from the catcher and made no attempt to run to first base. I didn’t see it initially and wondered if it was really as bad as everyone said, so I went back to the replay on Monday. Spoiler alert: It was that bad.
- Another bright spot is Byron Buxton, who has six home runs in his last six games. Unfortunately, they have all been solo homers. And, um, the Twins are 1-5 in those six games.
- Minnesota Star Tribune columnist Patrick Reusse, who has been supremely annoyed by the Twins’ play in June, did not mince words talking about the team on Monday’s Daily Delivery podcast. His sense is that they should trade a bunch of their top relief pitchers in hopes of recouping prospects, regardless of what the wild-card standings might say.
- The Kevin Durant saga came to a predictable end Sunday when the aging star was traded to Houston. The Wolves had shown interest in dealing for Durant at the trade deadline and this offseason, but Durant reportedly didn’t want to come here. My take is that KD saved the Wolves from themselves. He would have had a much greater chance of becoming a roster disaster than a champion in Minnesota.
- Durant’s old team, the Oklahoma City Thunder, prevailed in a gritty Game 7 Sunday to win their first NBA title. My thought watching the Pacers gamely battle for an entire series was that I wished the Wolves had shown anywhere near that resolve against OKC in the Western Conference finals.
- We’ll never know how things might have turned out differently Sunday if not for the devastating Achilles injury to Pacers star Tyrese Haliburton. He’s been their comeback king with a series of clutch performances, and I would have liked the Pacers’ chances had he not gone down early in Game 7.
- The Wolves have the No. 17 and No. 31 picks in the NBA Draft this week, but they’ve been having enough trouble getting their capable draft picks from 2023 and 2024 on the court. I’ll be stunned if there isn’t some sort of trade surrounding one or both of the picks.
- Star Tribune columnist Jim Souhan is expected to join me on Tuesday’s podcast to talk about the Minnesota Lynx, who at 11-1 are showing that they are once again one of the WNBA’s top teams.
