The Minnesota Twins’ slide kept rolling Wednesday, and there wasn’t much about the 7-2 loss to the Detroit Tigers that offered a clean escape hatch.
Minnesota dropped the rubber game, fell to 69-77, and came out of it with more questions than answers. Zebby Matthews struggled badly, the bullpen was left to clean up another mess, and the offense never found enough life to matter beyond one brief burst.
Matthews’ afternoon went sideways quickly. He didn’t get through the third inning, and his command never really settled in.
The right-hander walked four batters, matching a season high, and the scattered location of his pitches put him in constant trouble. Detroit kept forcing him into uncomfortable counts and made him pay, which led Derek Shelton to pull him before the game could unravel even further.
Zebby Matthews (MIN) walked four and allowed five earned runs over 2.1 innings against the Tigers pic.twitter.com/5oUM7RFi0B
The Twins’ bats didn’t do much to help. Minnesota managed just five hits and scored its only runs on back-to-back solo homers from Kody Clemens and Josh Bell in the fourth inning. After that, the lineup went quiet and stayed that way.
That has become the larger problem. The Twins are not consistently putting pressure on opposing pitchers, and right now they’re giving away too many easy outs.
The results since August 1 tell the story: Minnesota is 13-22 in that stretch, a mark Andrew Gleeman noted is the worst in the American League. They also haven’t won a road series since the July 4 weekend against the Yankees.
For a club that added significantly at the trade deadline, the late-season collapse is hard to ignore. The Twins’ postseason path is slipping away, and this latest loss only sharpened the sense that the finish line is arriving with October baseball still out of reach. Minnesota has had young players step up at times, but the overall underperformance has persisted.
The Twins get Thursday off before opening a series against the Guardians on Friday at Target Field. Minnesota will send RHP Taj Bradley to the mound.
He is 11-6 with a 3.95 ERA this season. Cleveland will counter with LHP Parker Messick, who is 11-9 with a 2.53 ERA.
First pitch is set for 8:10 P.M. CT on TwinsTV.
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