MINNEAPOLIS — The offense is absent. Good defense continues to elude the Minnesota Twins. Fans are staying away in droves.
Unable to sustain any type of momentum whatsoever, the Twins produced another clunker Monday night, losing 5-1 to the New York Mets in front of the smallest non-COVID-19 crowd in Target Field history.
If you’re feeling like this is a carryover from last season, one that ended with a 12-27 collapse that resulted in the Twins missing the playoffs and the dismissal of several popular coaches and general manager Thad Levine, you’re not alone.
Monday’s loss in front of 10,240 fans dropped the team’s record to 5-12.
“It feels exactly like late last year,” shortstop Carlos Correa said. “We have to figure out a way to bounce back and make sure this doesn’t dictate the rest of the season.”
Down a run in the fifth inning, the Twins had a prime opportunity to rebound. After Mets starter Clay Holmes filled the zone with strikes in the first four innings, he began to falter. The Twins loaded the bases with no outs, courtesy of two walks and a hit batsman.
Christian Vázquez tied the score with a sacrifice fly, and then the Twins offense went silent. Edouard Julien bounced into a fielder’s choice, and Byron Buxton struck out, one of three on the night for him and 21 this season.
The rest of the game followed what has become an all-too-predictable format, reminiscent of the end of last season, one Correa described as a “s— show.”
“We’ve been trying,” Twins shortstop Carlos Correa said after Monday’s loss to the Mets. “Honestly, I don’t know what to tell you right now, but we have to figure it out as a team.” (Jesse Johnson / Imagn Images)
Reliever Justin Topa took over for Joe Ryan, who struck out eight and allowed only one run over five laborious innings.
Topa walked leadoff man Pete Alonso and yielded a one-out, go-ahead RBI double to Mark Vientos. Topa recorded a second out and looked as if he’d minimize the damage when Luis Torrens hit a comebacker. But similar to Griffin Jax in a loss at the Kansas City Royals on Tuesday, Topa airmailed his throw to first, which allowed Vientos to score and increased the deficit to 3-1.
In the seventh, reliever Jorge Alcala allowed an infield leadoff single to Luisangel Acuña and threw the ball away, allowing the batter to reach second base. The errors were the fifth and sixth committed by Twins pitchers in 17 games this season, which is on pace to shatter the club record of 26.
Juan Soto made the additional base moot, however, when he blasted a two-run homer off Alcala to extend New York’s lead to four runs.
The cushion was more than the Mets would need.
More listless than the home crowd (aside from one boisterous fan in the second deck), the Twins offense was no match for New York’s pitching. Following five strong innings from Holmes, three Mets relievers struck out five batters over four innings, limiting the Twins to a walk and a hit.
After loading the bases in the fifth, Twins hitters went 1-for-13.
Hear from Rocco after tonight’s game against the Mets. pic.twitter.com/lNsINqLHxC
— Twins.TV (@twinstv) April 15, 2025
“We had to do a lot more offensively,” Twins manager Rocco Baldelli said. “After playing a really nice ballgame (Sunday), you don’t want to see the fundamental element of the game go away. We had two throwing errors. … We have to avoid these things.”
The problem is that the issues are piling up, and each is appearing at a different time.
At first, it was two terrible turns from the starting rotation combined with no offense. Then the bats arrived briefly and the defense went away. Now, the starting pitchers are delivering, but the offense is quiet and the defense is making the kind of guttural noises nobody wants to hear.
Meanwhile, the solutions have been difficult to discern.
“We’ve been trying,” Correa said. “We’ve been putting in the work and doing everything that’s within our control. Honestly, I don’t know what to tell you right now, but we have to figure it out as a team. … We’re going to keep working. We’re going to keep preparing. Just try to control the process. The results have been terrible so far as a team. We have to make adjustments and make them quick.”
The situation bears a strong resemblance to the beginning and the end of last season.
The Twins opened the 2024 campaign with a 7-13 mark before reeling off wins in 63 of their next 103 contests and increasing their odds of making the playoffs to 95 percent. Then the club melted down in a way that has soured fans, who simply aren’t showing up to the ballpark this season.
With the team’s offense in a free fall to the finish in 2024 and key injuries leaving Baldelli with a thin roster, including a green, taxed starting rotation, the Twins choked.
In the aftermath of the collapse, the Twins dismissed all three of their popular hitting coaches (David Popkins, Derek Shomon and Rudy Hernandez) and parted with assistant coach Tony Diaz. They also didn’t renew the contract of Levine, who had been the club’s GM since 2017.
Bringing largely the same roster back with a handful of additions, the Twins decided in spring training to overhaul the way they operate. They hoped to foster an environment built on improved chemistry by requiring mandatory on-field batting practice, with the idea that it could help the group compete better in times of need.
Only 17 games in, the Twins are already being tested.
“I’ve addressed the team once already this year and talked about a few things,” Baldelli said. “It’s not a team address every week, depending on how we’re playing. That won’t be the case. But it’s maintaining the right dialogue with the coaching staff and with the players on an individual basis. That’s probably the best thing that I can do to get the results from the guys. Because it is a results business. The name of the game is winning. And the name of the game is performing when the game starts.”
(Top photo of the Mets’ Luisangel Acuña reaching first base on a throwing error by Jorge Alcala, not pictured: David Berding / Getty Images)