When the Twins depart Cleveland after Thursday afternoon’s series finale, they’ll lead the division by one game or three games. It sounds like a good position to be in, but it could’ve been a gargantuan lead over the second-place Guardians if not for a foursome of epic bullpen meltdowns by Minnesota.
In fact, as pointed out by Aaron Gleeman of The Athletic, the Twins would own a 10-game lead in the AL Central if it weren’t for four bullpen catastrophes in a week against the Guardians.
In the #MNTwins last four losses to Cleveland they had win probabilities as high as 92%, 98%, 82%, and 95%.
If the Twins had won all four, they'd be up 10.0 games in the AL Central. Even winning three of four would have meant leading by 8.0 games.
Instead they lead by only 2.0.
— Aaron Gleeman (@AaronGleeman) June 30, 2022
Wednesday’s debacle was the latest. Leading 6-3 in the bottom of the 10th inning, Emilio Pagan and Jharel Cotton surrendered four runs, including Cotton giving up the walk-off, two-run homer to Josh Naylor. Cleveland 7, Twins 6.
In the first game of Tuesday’s doubleheader, Carlos Correa put the Twins up 2-1 with an eighth-inning home run only to see Pagan enter the game in the bottom of the inning and give up two runs on a two walks and one hit. Cleveland 3, Twins 2.
Last Wednesday, the Twins led 10-7 in the bottom of the ninth before Pagan allowed two singles and a double, followed by Griffin Jax giving up a single and a sac-fly. Four runs later and the Twins were dead again. Cleveland 11, Twins 7.
Last Tuesday, Pagan entered the game in the eighth inning with the Twins lead 5-3 and he allowed a two-run, game-tying homer to Franmil Reyes. Cleveland went on to win the game in 11 innings. Cleveland 6, Twins 5.
“I don’t think you’ll see a game much more difficult on a team than that,” Twins manager Rocco Baldelli said after the latest bullpen failure. “We’ve got to find a way to finish games out.”
Pagan has been the common thread in all four disasters. The veteran right-hander carried a 2.45 ERA into last week’s Cleveland series, and assuming he doesn’t pitch Thursday he’ll leave this series with a fattened 5.26 ERA.
