The Minnesota Twins' June slide continued in an 11-2 loss to the Seattle Mariners on 6/24. Bailey Ober faltered as Julio Rodríguez homered in a 6-run 3rd.
StatPro MLB Beat Reporter
Another game, another lopsided loss. The Minnesota Twins' brutal June slide deepened on Tuesday with a demoralizing 11-2 defeat at the hands of the Seattle Mariners. The loss marks the team's 14th in its last 17 games, a stretch defined by a catastrophic failure on the mound that has left fans and the front office searching for answers.
The Twins have now allowed a staggering 133 runs in their last 17 contests, an average of 7.8 per game.
The game was effectively over before it truly began. After two quiet innings, the Mariners erupted for six runs in the third against Bailey Ober. What started as a promising outing, with Ober looking sharp, quickly devolved into a nightmare. Julio Rodríguez and Luke Raley both went deep in the frame, turning a competitive game into a blowout in a matter of minutes. Though Ober managed to settle down and pitch through seven innings, striking out seven, the damage was irreversible. Seattle wasn't done, as Cal Raleigh tacked on his MLB-leading 32nd home run in the ninth to add insult to injury.
Amid the wreckage, there were a few faint flickers of life from the Minnesota offense. In the sixth inning, Trevor Larnach and Carlos Correa provided the team's only runs with back-to-back solo home runs, a brief but welcome power surge. Both players, along with rookie Brooks Lee, finished the night with two hits apiece. Unfortunately, it was too little, too late, as Mariners starter Bryan Woo was otherwise dominant, fanning nine Twins batters over seven masterful innings.
Tuesday's disaster wasn't an isolated incident but a symptom of a much larger problem. The pitching staff is in crisis. Since losing starters Pablo López and Zebby Matthews to injury, the mound has been a revolving door of ineffectiveness. The rotation is taxed, the bullpen is overworked, and the results are plain to see. Allowing nearly eight runs per game is not a recipe for success in Major League Baseball, it's a recipe for a lost season. The pressure is mounting on the few healthy arms left, like Ober, to be perfect—an impossible standard.
With the big-league club flailing, many are looking to the farm system for hope. While top prospects like Walker Jenkins and Emmanuel Rodriguez are currently sidelined with their own injuries, the system still boasts depth, particularly with infielders and pitchers. Triple-A St. Paul has become a critical resource, providing reinforcements as the Twins navigate this injury plague. The question is no longer if more help will be called up, but when, and who will get the call to try and stop the bleeding.
It's a gut-check time for the Twins. All eyes now turn to Chris Paddack, who faces the tough task of dueling Seattle's ace Luis Castillo tomorrow. Can he be the stopper this team so desperately needs, or will the freefall continue? For a team that once had such high hopes, finding a way to win—any way at all—is now the only thing that matters.
