Twins stay stingy in series win vs. O's

BALTIMORE -- When the Twins arrived in the Charm City this weekend, they had just reached the midway point of the 2023 season and were ready to hit the reset button. “The season starts today …” their clubhouse whiteboard read before Game No. 83, and the team talked of changes in preparation, approach and execution the players hope will define the second half of their season.

Time will tell whether their goals come to pass. In the meantime, the Twins responded by rattling off consecutive wins before suffering a 2-1 loss to the Orioles in Sunday’s series finale at Oriole Park at Camden Yards. Sonny Gray twirled six scoreless innings and his seventh quality start of the season, but the Orioles scored two eighth-inning runs off closer Jhoan Duran to send the American League Central leaders back a game below .500.

• Gray's stellar first half earns third All-Star nod

“We barely gave up any runs the whole series,” manager Rocco Baldelli said. “We just had a rough ending here in the last game, and it's really the only blemish I see in the whole series.”

Here are three observations from Minnesota’s series win, which featured a lot of good pitching, mixed results offensively and an injury to a key contributor.

Son’s out!
Gray struck out seven and shaved his ERA to 2.50 through 17 starts with six more excellent innings Sunday, continuing the 33-year-old righty’s best season in years. The bedrock of that success? Gray’s uncanny ability to keep the ball in the ballpark, which he’s doing at a historic pace.

After six more homerless innings Sunday, Gray has now allowed only three long balls over 93 2/3 innings this season -- easily the fewest in the American League among qualified starters. He’s only the fourth starter since 2017 to allow no more than three homers over his first 90 innings, and with more than half the season complete, remains on pace to put together one of the best homer-suppressing seasons in recent memory. The fewest homers allowed by a qualified starter over the past 10 seasons (excluding 2020) is seven, achieved by the Brewers' Corbin Burnes in 2021 and the Mets' Matt Harvey in 2013.

Gray is also the first Twins starter since Francisco Liriano in 2010 to allow no more than three homers through his first 90 innings pitched.

“Throwing four different pitches at an over 20% clip, doing that, it's hard for an offense or a hitter to truly sit on one thing,” Gray said. “I've always made my living by spinning the ball. But with a little bit more experience, now I can throw a pitch and better read a hitter’s swing, see what they're trying to do.”

The offense arrives, then goes into hiding
The Twins’ underachieving offense was the focal point of a players-only meeting last week and stated desire to hit the reset button upon arriving in Baltimore on Friday. So it was encouraging when Minnesota’s hitters responded immediately: Baldelli flipped the lineup around, and the Twins’ offense exploded for eight runs in the series opener.

However, the Twins then combined for just two runs over the next two games, striking out 18 times and going 1-for-8 with runners in scoring position across 18 innings. Their only run Saturday came on Joey Gallo’s 15th homer, and their only run Sunday was provided by Willi Castro’s RBI double.

“We couldn't find any grass out there, that’s for sure,” Baldelli said. “I don't know what the weather is like here these days and how it treats all these baseballs, but I think we hit the ball good … We hit a lot of balls pretty well. If we hit the ball like that, we're going to score more than one run off of the starting pitcher. Today we just couldn't do it. They made some good plays.”

These issues have been indicative of the Twins’ offense all year. Gallo has now homered four times in his past eight games, and Castro --their fourth outfielder -- leads the Minnesota position players in WAR. But with Carlos Correa and Byron Buxton still slumping … that’s been about it. The Twins’ 867 strikeouts are by far the most in baseball, and put them on pace to shatter the single-season K record. Relatedly, they are hitting an MLB-worst .146 this season with two strikes.

Injury bug
With all of this context, it makes the timing of Royce Lewis’ latest injury particularly tough for the Twins. Placed on the IL on Sunday, Lewis is expected to miss several weeks to the left oblique strain he suffered in Saturday’s win, truncating what had been an impact season from the rookie since he returned from knee surgery in late May.

Lewis had been arguably the Twins’ best hitter this season, batting .326 with 15 RBIs in 26 games, and with his placement on the injured list he joins key hitters Jorge Polanco and Nick Gordon, who are also on the shelf. Minnesota’s 348 days lost to the IL by position players are third-most in the Majors, trailing only the Giants and Red Sox.