Twins pitching coach Pete Maki dissects ‘insane’ rough stretch for rotation

Twins pitching coach Pete Maki stopped in the Target Field dugout Tuesday, after watching bullpen sessions, to speak with reporters about what has gone wrong with the team’s pitching staff over the past month.

The length of Maki’s first answer spanned more than four minutes.

It’s hard to explain how Twins pitchers went from one of the best pitching staffs over the first two months of the season to suddenly one of the worst.

The Twins entered Tuesday with a league-worst 6.81 ERA over 21 games this month. They’ve allowed at least nine runs in seven of their last 13 games. They lost staff ace Pablo López to a shoulder injury at the beginning of the month, but that shouldn’t mean every other pitcher loses his way.

“We have very talented guys in the bullpen and rotation,” Maki said. “This is part of any season. Has it been bad? Yeah, it’s been bad, man. The run [lately] has been a little insane. The way to really evaluate that is each outing. What led to it today? My pitchers hear this a lot from me, ‘I’ll say what do you want back? The pitch choice or the execution?’ It’s always worth looking at those two things.”

Maki confirmed the Twins will likely employ more openers as a strategy to help their struggling starting rotation.

After spearheading a 13-game winning streak in May, Twins pitchers saw their walk rate spike in June, their strikeout rate drop and opposing hitters have a .281 batting average against them. There is no common denominator, Maki said, for all their issues.

“I know the fans and the media, they want a two- or three-sentence story about why this is happening,” Maki said. “The truth to that question is it’s like, all right, which game and which pitcher. There really is no one answer.”

Maki credited the Milwaukee Brewers for their ability to put balls in play and put pressure on defenders with their baserunning after the Twins were swept in the three-game series and outscored 35-14.

But that’s been the trend all month. Twins pitchers have yielded 148 runs in June entering Tuesday, which is 34 more runs than the next-worst pitching staff.

“Our message to our guys is ‘We’re going to stick to our core values and core principles,’ ” Maki said. “There are a few things we can sharpen up within our core principles, and we have been talking about those.”

Maki acknowledged it sounds like typical coachspeak — “it’s pretty boring to hear that,” he said — but they want to remain process-oriented.

“Our [pitching coaches] have proven they know how to put a good group together, work with them and put them in a great position to succeed,” manager Rocco Baldelli said. “I think the players have a lot of faith in our group as well. I do really feel very good when I go to bed at night knowing Pete is leading our group and our guys are prepared when they go out there.”

Baldelli, in his seventh season as the Twins manager, is under contract through the 2026 season after a club option was exercised, according to a report from The Athletic.

It’s unclear when the Twins exercised the club option, with a spokesman citing a team policy that the club doesn’t discuss contracts for non-playing personnel. A source told the Minnesota Star Tribune during spring training that Baldelli was not in a lame-duck contractual situation.

“The entire time I’ve been here with the Twins organization, I’ve never commented on anything contractually or anything related to it,” Baldelli, 43, said Tuesday. “I’m going to stay there. I spend all my time and my energy right now thinking about our team, how to get our guys in a great place and how to win games. That’s the way I’d like to keep it. I don’t really have anything to add on that in any way.”

The Twins entered Tuesday with a 494-454 record (.521 winning percentage) under Baldelli, which includes division titles in 2019, 2020 and 2023.