Bailey Ober walked to the dugout with his head down following the second inning Tuesday, loosely holding his glove in his right hand, and he didn’t notice a teammate offering a cursory high-five as he strode down the dugout stairs.
Slumping Twins lose 4-1 to Marlins, and frustration is clear
Minnesota fell to the last-place Miami Marlins on Tuesday night and is two games behind the Detroit Tigers and Kansas City Royals in the AL wild-card race.
The Minnesota Star Tribune
September 25, 2024 at 5:29AM
In the final week of the season, losing to the National League’s worst team with the Twins sitting outside the playoff picture, reality and frustration is setting in. Ober surrendered four runs in the second innings and the Twins offense continued its horrid slump in a 4-1 loss to the Miami Marlins at Target Field.
The Twins, who have lost 23 of their past 34 games, dropped two games behind Kansas City and Detroit for the final two wild cards with five games left in their season. The Tigers won before the Twins started batting practice in the afternoon, and the Royals won in extra innings.
Frustration from Twins players was obvious. Ryan Jeffers spiked his bat into the ground when he hit an infield pop-up with two runners on base in the eighth inning, then slammed his helmet on the dugout bench. Ober pinched the bridge of his nose and stared at the ground when his start ended.
“Sometimes things happen where you just can’t stop the ball,” shortstop Carlos Correa said. “It’s been a tough couple of weeks — it’s been almost a month already. From when I was [injured], you get frustrated watching, and then I’m back on the field and we’re not getting better as a team. It’s obviously frustrating. We have five games to make something happen.”
There have been no answers for the Twins offense, which has averaged 2.75 runs over its past eight games. They left 10 men on base Tuesday and produced one hit in nine at-bats with a runner in scoring position. They haven’t hit a homer in their past 60 innings.
“Everybody in here has been successful at some point and they know how to get there,” Correa said. “There’s got to be a sense of urgency in terms of showing up earlier, getting the work in and trying to find something that can help us this week.”
Has Correa sensed more urgency?
“Some guys, yeah,” he said. “Some of us hit extra today and tried to figure something out. We didn’t get the win, but we’ve got to do more of that.”
Correa didn’t offer any more specifics, noting all players were doing their best to make the playoffs, but he added, “We have a lot of young guys and a lot of people try to help them, but at the end of the day, everybody has to figure it out on their own.”
The Twins put two runners on base in four of their five innings against Marlins lefthander Ryan Weathers, and it amounted to almost nothing. Correa and Byron Buxton, who reached base a combined five times, were stranded in the first inning when Carlos Santana flew out to center and Royce Lewis lined out to right. Manuel Margot struck out with runners on first and second base in the second inning.
After Buxton reached on an infield single in the third inning and Santana followed with a walk, Lewis scorched an RBI single through the left side of the infield. The rally fizzled two pitches later when Kyle Farmer grounded into an inning-ending double play.
Matt Wallner, one of the Twins’ top hitters during the second half of the season, exited with left oblique tightness after striking out as a pinch hitter in the sixth inning.
“Any time you’re not scoring runs, there’s going to be frustration,” Twins manager Rocco Baldelli said. “That’s besides the point. We know that. Being frustrated at this point is a waste of energy and is not helping us. It always comes down to execution.”
Ober, whose average fastball velocity was down 1.5 mph, allowed eight hits and two walks in five innings.
Jonah Bride opened the scoring in a disastrous second inning for Ober when he crushed an elevated fastball to the second deck in left field for a solo homer. With two outs, Ober hit Derek Hill with an errant changeup and watched Otto Lopez bloop a single next to the right-field line. Nick Fortes, the No. 9 hitter in the lineup for the 99-loss Marlins, followed with an RBI single when he lined a first-pitch fastball to right field.
On Ober’s next pitch, a cutter, Xavier Edwards lofted a two-run double to the left-field wall for a four-run lead. The Twins haven’t scored more than four runs in a game since Sept. 15. Ober shook his head as he walked from behind the plate back to the mound.
“I’m more frustrated that I’m giving up runs,” Ober said. “Just with where we’re at in the season, every run counts and matters. I’m not thinking about our productivity on the other side. I’m trying to limit everything they have and not allow them to get a big inning like that.”
The eight Twins headed for arbitration are Royce Lewis, Joe Ryan, Jhoan Duran, Bailey Ober, Ryan Jeffers, Willi Castro, Griffin Jax and Trevor Larnach.
