Minnesota Twins swept by Atlanta Braves with 6-2 loss, drop to 7-15 on the season

ATLANTA - Now that they’ve provided the Atlanta Braves with three days of season-changing rejuvenation, the Twins could use some emergency resuscitation of their own.

Hello, Chicago White Sox.

Yes, after crawling out of Truist Park with a discouraging three-game sweep by the Braves — Sunday’s never-in-doubt 6-2 loss was the door slamming in their face — the Twins must rely on the ineptitude of their 5-16 American League Central brethren to rescue them from the 7-15 quagmire they find themselves in.

It’s worked before. The Twins were 7-13 exactly one year ago Monday, but the White Sox arrived to change their season. The Twins embarked on a 12-game winning streak, victimizing the White Sox and then the Los Angeles Angels, and never fell below .500 again. This week’s homestand features — oh hey, look at that — the White Sox and Angels, either a desperately needed lifeline or a cruel joke.

The Twins know which one this weekend was. Sunday’s loss was Minnesota’s 11th in a row to the Braves, dating back to 2019. The Braves opened the series with a worse record than the Twins at 5-13 but righted themselves by snuffing the easily-snuffable Twins offense.

At least the Twins won’t have Michael Harris II around to rob them of roughly half the runs the Twins believe they should have scored this weekend. The Braves center fielder, after robbing three or four extra-base hits with long running catches in the first two games, this time corralled what Brooks Lee thought would be a two-run double in the fourth.

“Easily,” Lee said, shaking his head at the lost rally. “That was rough. You see our team, we’re not hitting like we know we can, and even when things do get strung together, we’re not capitalizing.”

Very true. The Twins managed only four hits in 5⅔ innings against Braves righthander Grant Holmes yet, thanks to his wildness, twice loaded the bases with one out. But they turned those opportunities into just one run — on Holmes’ own wild pitch.

That’s 0-for-7 with runners in scoring position, one day after going 0-for-8. Strikeouts, weak grounders and Harris’ Superman act extinguished the rest of those threats.

“That’s the difference in a couple of these games,” Twins catcher Ryan Jeffers said. “He’s out there making plays on balls that, if he can’t quite get to them, those are a lot of runs for us.”

The Twins, meanwhile, couldn’t get to a lot of balls the Braves hit against Joe Ryan, mostly because Truist Park seems to be his own personal launching pad. Ryan, who allowed a career-high five homers here in an unfortunate 2023 start, this time surrendered three, accounting for five of Atlanta’s six runs.

Matt Olson smashed a two-run blast that traveled 403 feet to center field in the first inning, and rookie Drake Baldwin added a two-run shot in the third that barely carried into the Twins bullpen in left field. Marcell Ozuna’s solo homer got out quick to left-center in the fifth, Ryan’s final inning.

“I kind of got away from our plan today,” Ryan admitted, but he said he was shocked the homers had the distance to get out. “Maybe I sound like an idiot, but the Olson ball, I thought maybe [it would be] a double or that [center fielder Byron] Buxton would grab it. It seemed to fly really close to my head, but he’s an amazing strong guy, and it just carried out.”

BOXSCORE: Atlanta 6, Twins 2

MLB standings

The only player to match him on the Twins was Buxton, who remains winless (0-6) in his home state despite a putting on a show of his own. With plenty of family and friends from downstate Baxley in the stands, Buxton hit for the cycle this weekend, following two singles and a triple Saturday with a double and his first career homer in Atlanta, a seventh-inning solo shot, on Sunday.

“Buck looks outstanding right now. He looks explosive. That’s a fantastic thing for us,” Twins manager Rocco Baldelli said. “You can see it in his face, you can see it in the way he’s playing the outfield.”

You don’t see it in many other faces right now, though. Lee, for instance, likes how he’s swinging the bat, but the results — 2-for-19, a .105 average — don’t reflect it. And he’s only been on the team … what, a week now?

“Feels like an eternity,” he said.