{"id":29247,"date":"2026-04-30T23:13:35","date_gmt":"2026-04-30T23:13:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/?p=29247"},"modified":"2026-04-30T23:13:37","modified_gmt":"2026-04-30T23:13:37","slug":"three-takeaways-from-twins-series-loss-to-angels","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/?p=29247","title":{"rendered":"Three takeaways from Twins’ series loss to Angels"},"content":{"rendered":"


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MINNEAPOLIS — If they weren\u2019t already there, the Twins are officially in a rut. Wednesday afternoon\u2019s 5-3 loss to the Mariners<\/a> made it 11 defeats in 13 games, and four straight series lost. It doesn\u2019t get any easier when the reigning American League champion Blue Jays come to town for four games over the weekend at Target Field.\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Here are three ways Minnesota can get back in the win column.\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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1. Throw strikes, especially late<\/strong>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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The winning rally for Seattle on Wednesday started with a walk. The rally that broke open Tuesday\u2019s game started with a walk. The Mets\u2019 two go-ahead rallies last week in Queens featured critical two-out walks.\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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The Twins\u2019 bullpen has some pitchers who absolutely can be effective, but very few who have overwhelming stuff. They have to locate in order to get hitters out. Eric Orze hadn\u2019t walked a batter in more than two weeks before issuing a four-pitch leadoff walk to Randy Arozarena in the ninth on Wednesday, and that set up the rest of the rally, including Cole Young\u2019s soft ground-ball single through a drawn-in infield to put the Mariners ahead.\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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\u201cA situation like that, you can\u2019t walk the leadoff guy, let alone on four pitches,\u201d Orze said. \u201cYou have to be competitive in zone and make them earn it. The couple of base hits afterward, that\u2019s obviously where the difference came. I have to execute.\u201d\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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2. Get one big hit, especially early<\/strong>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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This Minnesota team prides itself on playing 27 outs, and it\u2019s true that this club has been hard to kill. The Twins keep coming at you, getting baserunners, coming back when they\u2019re down. But over their recent slide, they\u2019ve had a terrible time getting the key hit in RBI opportunities, especially early. They missed key chances early on Tuesday and Wednesday, chances not only to take big leads, but maybe to chase Seattle starters.\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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That can then lead to tense at-bats later, as well as allowing opponents to deploy their bullpens the way they want to, rather than having to navigate four, five, six innings in a game.\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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\u201cI thought we did a good job with our approach,\u201d manager Derek Shelton said. \u201cYou saw two really good starting pitchers right there. That was dominant stuff on both sides and not a ton of hard contact. We had opportunities.\u201d\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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If there\u2019s one thing to like about how things have been going lately, it\u2019s the starting rotation. Taj Bradley and Joe Ryan both turned in excellent outings after rough ones<\/a> on the road trip. Connor Prielipp has thrived<\/a> in place of Mick Abel. Bailey Ober continues to find ways to succeed with diminished velocity. Simeon Woods Richardson has struggled in recent starts, but overall, the Twins\u2019 starters are keeping them in games.\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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With Bradley on Wednesday, he showed exactly why the club is so excited about him. He struck out batters on four different pitches, showing an especially nasty curveball, while his velocity ticked back up to where it was in his first couple of starts. If Bradley and Ryan in particular keep pitching like they did this week, wins will follow.\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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\u201cI think I had command of my offspeed early, and I feel like I could pitch backwards, pitch forwards, and I felt like I had good command of the fastball,\u201d Bradley said. \u201cWorking it in and out and getting it down and having them set their eyes a little lower to where the curveball worked, the slider worked, and the splitter worked.\u201d\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n


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MINNEAPOLIS — If they weren\u2019t already there, the Twins are officially in a rut. Wednesday afternoon\u2019s 5-3 loss to the Mariners made it 11 defeats in 13 games, and four straight series lost. It doesn\u2019t get any easier when the reigning American League champion Blue Jays come to town for four games over the weekend … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":29248,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-29247","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/Three-takeaways-from-Twins-series-loss-to-Angels.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29247","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=29247"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29247\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":29249,"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29247\/revisions\/29249"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/29248"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=29247"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=29247"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=29247"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}