Garver heating up, but Twins' bats silenced

MINNEAPOLIS -- The Twins’ offense put together some big numbers earlier in this homestand following a slow start to the year, but it hasn’t been quite as simple as flipping a switch and watching the runs flood in on a consistent basis. If Mitch Garver continues this offensive progress, however, it could help sustain more of that offense.

Minnesota generated plenty of baserunners throughout a chilly Wednesday evening against Texas, but it couldn’t bring them home. The Twins’ only run in a 3-1 loss at Target Field came on Garver’s solo homer in the second inning, continuing what the backstop hopes can be a bounce-back season after a difficult 2020.

“When you don’t win a lot of different games that you feel deep down you just should have won, that confidence, it gets tested. And I think that’s us coming together and realizing that we’re the only ones that are going to be able to figure this out, and go out there and move forward and get where we need to be,” manager Rocco Baldelli said.

Garver’s blast to the second deck was the only solid contact the Twins could muster in their first trip through the lineup against Rangers left-hander Hyeon-Jong Yang, who left a fastball over the inner half of the plate that Garver clubbed an estimated 429 feet into left field.

It was his sixth blast of the season and fourth in his last five starts. Garver has also cut down on the strikeouts and started damaging fastballs as he did in 2019, when he won the AL Silver Slugger Award at catcher.

Outside of that long ball, the Twins’ offense didn’t have much despite featuring a lineup loaded with right-handed bats to face a parade of four left-handed Rangers pitchers (plus righty Ian Kennedy). Minnesota actually outhit Texas, 8-7, but went 0-for-9 with runners in scoring position and couldn’t bring a runner home after loading the bases with no outs in the fourth.

“On a night like this, when we have a right-handed-hitting lineup out there and we’ve got a chance to face a bunch of lefties, we expect more from ourselves in a lot of these at-bats,” Baldelli said. “These are at-bats that we should go up there and feel pretty good about being able to hit a ball hard facing some of these guys.”

Following a .151/.196/.321 start in his first 17 games, Garver is now 7-for-19 (.368) across his last five appearances, and his homer on Wednesday marked the hardest-hit blast of his career, with an exit velocity of 110.7 mph per Statcast. The second- and third-hardest homers of his career have also come in this span -- both on April 28 in Cleveland. All four of his recent homers have come against heaters.

He entered Wednesday slugging .632 against fastballs this season -- and that’s only going up after his big fly off Yang. It’s still a far cry from the otherworldly .829 mark he posted when he cranked 31 homers in 2019, but it’s still a marked -- and needed -- improvement from the .359 a year ago.

“I think a lot of it for him is focusing on balance at the plate and finding a way to use the whole field. Drive the ball up the middle and the other way, and I think that puts him in a good spot to catch some out in front and hit them good, too,” Baldelli said.

And though the Twins need Garver to sustain this kind of production against lefties, that’s far from a magical solution that will help them right the ship amid a troubling start.

Cody Stashak allowed both his inherited runners to score in the sixth -- accounting for the final margin -- and Minnesota relievers have now allowed 60 percent of such runners to touch home -- well above the MLB average of 35 percent.

As for those continued issues, they’re still seeking answers.

“When things are going well, you find ways to get it done,” Baldelli said. “You find ways to win games, and it’s not always pretty. It’s not always about hitting homers and throwing shutouts and things like that, but you find ways to put it together. We, through a month-plus, we haven’t been able to do that.”