3 Twins who need to be hot for stretch run
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The help the Twins seemingly needed on the trade market at this year’s Trade Deadline never materialized as 5 p.m. CT came and went on Tuesday, with the Twins sitting pat aside from their reliever swap of Dylan Floro for Jorge López with the Marlins last Wednesday.
And now that the Deadline transactions (or lack thereof) have settled, here’s a look at three players who will need to step up for the Twins to succeed.
Emilio Pagán
The Twins’ bullpen leverage group is quite thin, having been overly reliant on Jhoan Duran and Griffin Jax throughout the season, with Caleb Thielbar working back into the mix. The club had been counting on Brock Stewart to return from injury soon, but he suffered a setback with additional forearm soreness following a bullpen session that required another MRI, and even with a good result, he’ll be tracking even further behind.
That’s not very good when the Twins have played a seemingly limitless number of close games, the product of a good pitching staff and a bad offense.
Considering how shaky Jovani Moran has become, that’s going to put a lot of the onus on Pagán, who has a 1.35 ERA in 20 innings going back to June 15, with only two homers allowed in those 20 appearances. Unless Moran or Jordan Balazovic secure more trust in leverage innings, Pagán looks to be the guy -- and they’ll really have to count on him.
Royce Lewis
No pressure, kid, but Lewis is going to wear a lot of the Twins’ hopes for lineup help against left-handed pitching, against which Minnesota has the least productive lineup in MLB.
With no right-handed help entering the mix at the Trade Deadline, the Twins’ group will remain heavily left-handed until the return of Lewis, who is hitting .353 with a .905 OPS against southpaws in his MLB career (in, admittedly, much too small of a sample size to be meaningful so far).
Still, this is a group constructed to hit lefties well that inexplicably does not, with Carlos Correa (.725 OPS against lefties), Byron Buxton (.627 OPS), Kyle Farmer (.729 OPS) and Donovan Solano (.693) not performing as well against them as the Twins need. It’s unfair to expect Lewis to fix everything -- but he’s a right-handed bat who can hit lefties, and they need one of those.
Carlos Correa
It briefly looked like Correa turned things around following his move to the leadoff spot on June 30, but he has since come down to earth, mired in an 8-for-49 (.163) stretch with three doubles in his last 12 games, dating back to July 19.
Ideally, the Twins would want him to lead the charge in turning around their misfortunes against left-handed pitching, but the scope should be broader than that: They need their team leader to start consistently providing offense against both righties and lefties from the top of their lineup to finish an otherwise difficult season strong -- especially as the pitching staff has started to falter, reducing the club’s margin for error.