At present, the Minnesota Twins are sitting comfortably in a wild card spot in the American League standings with a rock-solid 68-53 record entering their Friday night contest against the Texas Rangers. Nonetheless, there is much concern surrounding the Twins' contending viability in the playoffs, provided, of course, that they stay their current course and make it to the postseason. Minnesota has gone through a plethora of injury problems, with their starting rotation bearing the brunt of the impact of the injury bug.
The hallmark of a team with a winning mentality, of course, is to press on regardless of the adversity that's thrown their way. For Twins manager Rocco Baldelli, he is confident in the group of guys he deploys on a nightly basis despite being one of the teams that have been depleted the most due to injuries.
“We can’t look at this and say if we had this or if we had that. All that matters is that we win a game today. We got to find a way to win with the players that we have. We have capable guys, guys that are going to be prepared and ready to go,” Baldelli said, per Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic.
Indeed, the Twins have been playing solid baseball as of late despite missing two of their best position players in Carlos Correa and Byron Buxton, both of whom are on the injured list at the moment. Moreover, their ace, Joe Ryan, appears to be in real danger of missing the rest of the season due to a Grade 2 teres major strain, while veteran Chris Paddack, a dependable middle of the rotation starter, is on the IL as well.
Rocco Baldelli is not in the business of playing the what-if game, as all he's locked in on is helping the Twins hold the fort as those players recuperate from their injuries.
“Would it look different if Buck and Correa were active? Of course it would, but they’re not active right now. They almost certainly will be back and back pretty soon, so right now we got to hold it down until they come back,” Baldelli added.
Twins hold down the fort amid injuries
Carlos Correa and Byron Buxton are in the middle of superstar-caliber seasons for the Twins. The former is currently slashing .308/.377/.520 on the season across 317 plate appearances, and advanced metrics have been impressed with his defense as well — with Fangraphs rating his value at 3.6 WAR overall. Meanwhile, Buxton has torn the cover off the ball, hitting for an .862 OPS while playing his customary impressive defense at center field. In just 90 games, he has tallied 3.2 WAR.
As Rosenthal pointed out, the star trio of Correa, Buxton, and Royce Lewis have started just 17 games together, or around a paltry 14 percent of the season. A ton of credit must go to Willi Castro for being the jack of all trades that he is. Castro has assumed everyday shortstop duties for the Twins with Correa out, but he has also started more than 20 games in three other positions. Moreover, the likes of Jose Miranda and Matt Wallner have played exceptionally as well to make up for the loss of Correa and Buxton's productive bats.
Meanwhile, the Twins are relying on three rookies to keep them afloat on the starting pitching side of things, which is less than ideal for a team with World Series aspirations. Nevertheless, Minnesota's bullpen is certified elite, which should give the team enough confidence that they can shock the world come October.
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