'We'll be back': End of magical run leaves Twins wanting more

MINNEAPOLIS -- Target Field had never seen an October like this one, and the walls of Minnesota limestone strained as a once-tortured fanbase poured into the building and rose as one, working to will this magical month to last just another day -- or even an hour, or even a minute.

But the magic ran out.

This was the long-awaited team that finally resurrected the faded fervor of postseason baseball in Minnesota, the one that finally wrested off the burdensome cloak of unwanted history, the one that found the spark to ignite the voices of a region and a state that once again remembered what it was like to scream themselves hoarse for a team that gave them hope.

In the end, this was a first step. Rome wasn’t built in a day. Even as a 3-2 loss to the Astros in Game 4 of the American League Division Series closed the chapter of this journey for the 2023 Twins, there was hope -- and plenty of it -- at Target Field until the very end. Even in defeat, it signaled that, perhaps, there’s more to come.

“The team is hungry in a way that I don't think we probably even were before,” manager Rocco Baldelli said. “You get a taste of something like this, you show this to people, what this looks like and what it is. We're not that far from playing in the World Series.”

Ultimately, the offense gave way. Even after the Twins flipped home-field advantage by splitting the first two games against Houston’s frontline duo of Justin Verlander and Framber Valdez, the bats combined for only three runs and six hits across two games against the Astros’ deep pitching corps, led by Cristian Javier and José Urquidy.

Not all of the offense gave way, though -- and that’s where the focus turns to the future.

Amid the sea of futile swings and weak contact on Wednesday, the performers who rose above the rest were Edouard Julien and Royce Lewis, who each clubbed a solo homer to account for all of Minnesota's scoring.

Julien reached base three times, and Lewis cemented himself into the Twins’ record books with his fourth big fly of the postseason, matching Hall of Famer Kirby Puckett for the most homers by a Twin in a single postseason. That’s where the future lies, alongside playoff hero Carlos Correa and Byron Buxton, who willed himself back for one more plate appearance on Wednesday.

“That kind of talent, learning from this experience, learning from everything we’ve been through, it’s going to make the whole group so much better,” Pablo López said. “A lot of rookies and young guys stepped up and elevated their game, elevated my game and our game in general.”

But the defending World Series champions showed the Twins the work that remains -- as did the manner in which this foray into October ultimately unraveled.

• Bullpen keeps Game 4 close with gritty effort

The offense that set the new AL/NL record in strikeouts in a season ended the playoffs with eight whiffs in its final nine plate appearances, and the only real rally the Twins mounted off Astros pitching on Wednesday ended as Max Kepler watched strike three go by in the sixth -- as he did in the ninth, to end Minnesota’s season.

The club exited having struck out 14 times on consecutive nights, extinguishing rallies created by patience, and often preventing those rallies altogether.

“The strikeouts, we can talk about strikeouts all day,” Julien said. “But for me, I don't see it as, 'The at-bats are bad because of a bad result.' Yeah, we struck out, but we had a lot of walks, too, and we had a lot of people on base. We just were one double away, one hit away from taking the lead.”

They’ll now have an offseason to sort through that. They’ll also have an offseason to think about how, despite all that, they were still that close to breaking through.

Aside from the blowout loss in Game 3, the Twins were right in it to the end in Game 1 facing future Hall of Famer Verlander. Fueled by their rookies, they remained within one big swing of extending this season until the bitter end in Game 4.

“The gap isn’t too crazy,” Correa said. “The thing is, the experience played a big role. Some experienced guys over there had some good at-bats with people on base. We didn’t get the chance to do the same, and they won the series.”

Correa badly wanted to step into that batter’s box in the ninth, but he was left standing in the on-deck circle as he watched the flame of the Twins’ season extinguished for the final time.

Minutes later, he was still standing -- but in front of his teammates, in the middle of a teary clubhouse that was still trying to process what happened, and what could have been, as players said their goodbyes.

Remember this, Correa told his teammates: It hurts to lose. Remember it, because you don’t want to feel it ever again. Remember it, and show up better to Spring Training because of it. Remember what it was like to come so far and come so close.

Remember that come next October, they’ll need to beat these Astros.

“Two weeks from now, when we're watching the World Series, we'll realize exactly how close we were,” Sonny Gray said.

Once the sting of defeat dulls, the magnitude of what this team meant will likely sink in outside the clubhouse as much as it did within those walls, where a bleary-eyed Gray looked around at the jerseys of the teammates who meant so much to him, where veterans and rookies alike marveled, once it was all over, at how unique this group’s chemistry and bond had been.

There’s no banner for “snapped an 18-game playoff losing streak,” nor is there one for “won a playoff series for the first time in 21 years.” For all the magic there briefly was, that perhaps made the disappointment at the end all the more crushing.

But now, they know what that’s like. This city, this region, this fanbase know what that’s like -- both sides of it. Finally.

They know they’ll be better off for it.

“We’re upset, we’re frustrated, but we’re excited to turn our sights to what we have in store for us,” Ryan Jeffers said.

Added Julien: “We'll be back.”