{"id":286947,"date":"2024-09-17T14:04:18","date_gmt":"2024-09-17T19:04:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/csinewsnow.com\/?p=286947"},"modified":"2024-09-17T14:04:19","modified_gmt":"2024-09-17T19:04:19","slug":"twins-margin-of-error-shrinks-in-playoff-chase","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/csinewsnow.com\/?p=286947","title":{"rendered":"Twins’ Margin Of Error Shrinks In Playoff Chase"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

CLEVELAND — What looked to be the magnum opus of a dizzyingly impressive season of high-leverage relief for Griffin Jax<\/a> instead quickly whiplashed into another episode of devastation for the Twins.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This was the game they really needed to have in this critical four-game series against the Guardians with ace Pablo L\u00f3pez on the mound. When Jax escaped a bases-loaded jam to hold a one-run lead in the seventh inning, the path appeared clear — that is, until Kyle Manzardo lifted the go-ahead, two-run blast an inning later to stamp out the Twins\u2019 hopes in a\u00a04-3 loss<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The team\u2019s now-healthy stars had done their part to scrape together some runs, and the pitching plan was exactly how the Twins would have hoped to draw it up — and it still wasn\u2019t enough, when things mattered most.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt’s pretty heartbreaking,\u201d Jax said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Monday\u2019s loss at Progressive Field pushed the Twins\u2019 deficit in the AL Central to 7 1\/2 games with 12 left to play, rendering the divisional race essentially moot, regardless of how these next three games go. Minnesota\u2019s lead over Detroit in the AL Wild Card standings<\/a> dwindled to 1 1\/2 games after the Tigers beat the Royals on Monday night.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOur margin of error keeps shrinking and shrinking,\u201d L\u00f3pez said. \u201cNow, it’s to the point where you’ve got to take it one day at a time, one pitch at a time, one at-bat at a time. Today will be a tough pill to swallow.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s a particularly tough pill to swallow because, when manager Rocco Baldelli can go from L\u00f3pez to Jax and Jhoan Duran with a lead, that\u2019s the Twins\u2019 best-case scenario with the least possible variance from a depleted bullpen, and one the Twins will always expect to win.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And for a fleeting few minutes, that looked to be in the cards.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not like they didn\u2019t throw the ball well,\u201d Baldelli said. \u201cSometimes, you have the right guys out there and guys that have been very, very good and productive for us all year long. \u2026 I will be thinking about it all night and tomorrow — what could we have done here?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

L\u00f3pez left the bases loaded with the Twins holding a 3-2 lead when he was pulled for Jax in the seventh. Jax, the third-most valuable reliever in baseball this season per FanGraphs, completely overpowered Andr\u00e9s Gim\u00e9nez for a three-pitch strikeout and dispatched longtime Twins tormentor Jos\u00e9 Ram\u00edrez on a one-pitch groundout to escape with that margin intact.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But in the eighth, it quickly vanished. Jax has not preferred to pitch parts of multiple innings, and has openly spoken of the mental toll he feels in trying to do so — and after he paced the dugout between frames, he allowed a leadoff double to Josh Naylor, then the one-out, two-run blast to the rookie Manzardo on a first-pitch fastball.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt’s really hard,\u201d Jax said. \u201cTrying to just regulate your emotions and be able to almost get yourself back to a spot where you feel like you came in the inning before. But I don’t have Spring Training to work on that. I have to do it now. I understand that. We’re kind of running on fumes as a staff.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Though the most visible burden will fall on Jax, who hadn\u2019t allowed a homer since July 21, and L\u00f3pez pointed the finger at himself for allowing the momentum to swing towards Cleveland by loading the bases in the seventh, the truth is this: The Twins still are not scoring runs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIf we\u2019re able to do what we need to do on the offensive end, we win,\u201d Baldelli said. \u201cBut we did not. We have to do better and we have to put nine innings together.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

They only mustered three runs on Monday, leaving 10 on the basepaths while going 2-for-9 with runners in scoring position, held to four or fewer runs for the 17th time in 27 games, a stretch in which they\u2019ve gone 9-18.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While Byron Buxton drove home a pair in the Twins\u2019 three-run third inning, they stranded multiple runners in the fourth and sixth, including Royce Lewis\u2019 flyout with the bases loaded in the latter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There was bound to be an acclimation period for the Twins\u2019 star hitters coming off the IL, but the pressure continues to mount with increased urgency — and now, heartbreak.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cEveryone’s aware of the standings,\u201d L\u00f3pez said. \u201cThere’s a scoreboard wherever you go. There’s apps. There’s social media. But we can’t let that give us self-inflicted pressure.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

CLEVELAND — What looked to be the magnum opus of a dizzyingly impressive season of high-leverage relief for Griffin Jax instead quickly whiplashed into another episode of devastation for the Twins. This was the game they really needed to have in this critical four-game series against the Guardians with ace Pablo L\u00f3pez […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":286948,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-286947","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/csinewsnow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/286947","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/csinewsnow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/csinewsnow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/csinewsnow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/csinewsnow.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=286947"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/csinewsnow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/286947\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":286949,"href":"http:\/\/csinewsnow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/286947\/revisions\/286949"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/csinewsnow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/286948"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/csinewsnow.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=286947"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/csinewsnow.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=286947"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/csinewsnow.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=286947"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}