Twins Blow A 5-1 Lead In San Diego And Stay 1 Game Out Of The Wild Card

Minnesota scored in each of the first 4 innings and not once after that, losing 7-5. They are still 1 game back of the third American League wild card because Texas lost too. The Twins are 63-67 with a minus-47 run differential and 32 games to play.

The Twins scored in each of the first 4 innings on Saturday night in San Diego and did not score again. That is the whole game: a 5-1 lead through four, nothing after it, and a 7-5 loss that dropped them to 63-67 and to 0-2 on this trip.

It cost them nothing in the standings, which is the strange part. Texas lost too, so Minnesota is exactly where it was on Friday morning — 1 game out of the third American League wild card, with 32 to play and an elimination number of 32. Nobody in this race is capable of pulling away from anybody, and that is the only reason a club that has been outscored by 47 runs is still in it.

3 Twins home runs, and San Diego still took it in the seventh

08/21 atPadresL2-6

08/22 atPadresL5-7

Luke Keaschall homered in the first, 396 feet to left. Brooks Lee and Kaelen Culpepper both went deep in the second — Culpepper's the loudest ball either side hit all night at 105.9 mph and 400 feet. By the end of the fourth it was 5-1, and a club that has been outscored by 47 runs on the season had a night where the bats showed up.

Jackson Merrill answered with one of his own in the second, and San Diego got 1 back in the sixth, 4 in the seventh and 1 in the eighth. Andrew Morris took the loss, Griffin Canning got the win, and Mason Miller closed it out. Both clubs finished with 10 hits; the Twins committed both errors in the game. Friday was less competitive and less interesting — 2 hits, a 6-2 final, Connor Prielipp charged with it.

The weekend before this one, Minnesota swept Atlanta at Target Field 4-2, 4-1 and 6-4. That is the stretch that bought them the position they are still holding onto, and it is the reason 2 losses in San Diego read as a wobble rather than a collapse.

The AL wild-card race: 7 clubs, none of them over .500

New York and Boston have the first 2 spots and are not giving them back. The third is a scrum, and Saturday moved nobody:

AL Wild Card	W	L	Pct	GB
Rangers	64	66	.492	—
Guardians	64	66	.492	—
Blue Jays	64	67	.489	0.5
Twins	63	67	.485	1.0
Orioles	63	67	.485	1.0
Mariners	62	68	.477	2.0
Tigers	61	68	.473	2.5

Detroit is the club to be nervous about. They are 2.5 back and the only team in the group that has outscored its opponents, by 77 runs — which is to say the Tigers are the only one of these clubs playing like a playoff team rather than backing into a bracket.

A rotation down 6 arms, and Joe Ryan is the only one coming back

Nothing moved on the Twins' injury table overnight, and what is already on it is the reason the pitching is what it is. David Festa is done for the year after double shoulder surgery. Pablo Lopez is on the 60-day list with an elbow and Mike Paredes with an oblique. Cole Sands is there after arthroscopic surgery to clear loose bodies and bone spurs from his right elbow, and Anthony Banda's repaired lat ended his season. Mick Abel is not re-evaluated until September 1.

Joe Ryan is the exception and the one genuinely good piece of news of the week: he threw a 25-pitch bullpen on Tuesday, per Dan Hayes of The Athletic, with a glute strain still holding him on the 15-day list. Austin Martin remains on the 10-day with a left hamstring strain suffered in the eighth inning of a 7-5 loss to Philadelphia, per Aaron Gleeman.

Twins at Padres odds Sunday: Bailey Ober against Walker Buehler

Bailey Ober (7-4, 4.62) faces Walker Buehler (7-6, 4.79) at 1:10 p.m. in San Diego. Both last pitched on August 17 and neither went deep: Ober got 4.1 innings and 94 pitches against Atlanta for a no-decision, Buehler 6 innings of 2-run ball at the Mets and took the loss anyway.

DraftKings has Minnesota at +126 and San Diego at -136, with the total 8.5 — over -129, under +100. That is roughly a 44% implied shot against a 70-60 club, a shorter price than a road team 4 games under .500 usually gets, and a fair reading of how ordinary Buehler's season has been.

Lose it and the Twins leave San Diego swept and go to Sacramento to play a 50-80 Athletics club that has been outscored by 188 runs, the worst mark in the league. In a race decided by 1 game, that is the week the season turns on.