The Minnesota Twins aren’t dead in the American League playoff race, but their hopes are fading despite losses by the Cleveland Guardians and Chicago White Sox on Thursday night. While they sit three games behind Cleveland for the final playoff spot in the AL, FanGraphs has their playoff odds down to 8.9 percent and the Twins sit at 67-73 entering a pivotal three-game series on the South Side this weekend.
As Yogi Berra once said, “it’s getting late early” for the Twins and with series against fellow playoff candidates, the Guardians, New York Yankees and Texas Rangers coming up, it’s looking more likely the Twins will miss the playoffs for the third straight year. But there are many moments that have put them into this situation and they’re something they’ll look back on as their playoff hopes continue to circle the drain.
Selling off the bullpen at the 2025 trade deadline
It’s hard not to talk about the Twins without bringing up either their payroll and ownership situation and both parts collided as Minnesota sold off its bullpen as part of last year’s fire sale. The idea of selling relievers for controllable pitching and prospects has produced some good things including Taj Bradley’s emergence at the top of the starting rotation. But it also left this year’s bullpen extremely shallow and without suitable replacements.
Part of the blame can be thrown on former president of baseball and business operations Derek Falvey, who seemed to be frozen in fear as the Twins sorted through their ownership situation last offseason until he resigned before Spring Training. But even after his dismissal, general manager Jeremy Zoll never invested in the bullpen, relying on minor-league deals and waiver pickups to build the unit.
As a result, the Twins have gotten what they’ve paid for. Entering Friday, Twins relievers rank 27th in MLB with a 4.79 ERA and sixth with 254 walks issued this season. The constant game of “Who is that guy?” also plagued the Twins as Justin Topa struggled before he was designated for assignment and Cole Sands battled with injuries and reinforcements before the Twins acquired A.J. Minter, Jeff Hoffman and Tommy Nance ahead of the trade deadline.
Those moves were too little, too late of course and while the Twins could have still swapped Griffin Jax for Bradley, hanging on to All-Star relievers Jhoan Duran and Louis Varland could have helped Minnesota stay in the race for a little longer.
Pablo Lopez tearing his UCL on the first day of Spring Training
Spring Training is usually a time for optimism, but that went out the window when Pablo Lopez left the Twins’ first full-squad workout of the season with an elbow injury. The injury turned out to be a torn UCL in his right elbow and Tommy John surgery wiped out his entire 2026 season before it began.
While the Twins had Joe Ryan in the rotation to assume the ace role, losing Lopez was a critical blow as it eliminated one of their most reliable pitchers.
Lopez didn’t pitch much in 2025 with his 75.2 innings marking his lowest total since he threw 58.2 innings during his rookie season with the Miami Marlins in 2018. But he was effective, going 5-4 with a 2.74 ERA, a 23.4 percent strikeout rate and a 6.4 percent walk rate.
Had Lopez not gotten injured, the Twins could have had a top pitching duo that could have contended with most teams in the American League and also had a third top pitcher considering how Bradley has broken out in his first full year in Minnesota. Other injuries to Mick Abel, David Festa and Ryan also taxed the Twins' rotation, and it led to too many games that got out of hand in the early innings.
Not calling up Walker Jenkins or Kaelen Culpepper sooner
The Twins likely saw this as a year of development for Jenkins and Culpepper but at some point, they had to pull the trigger and call them up. Both players made their way to the major leagues in the final month of the season, but there was a strong argument they should have crossed the river sooner and made a bigger impact on the major league team.
Culpepper’s delay has a built in excuse as he missed time with a glute injury in the middle of the season. But the Twins did everything they could to keep him in St. Paul, using a trio of Tristan Gray, Ryan Kreidler and Orlando Arcia before promoting Culpepper on Aug. 7.
While there have been some growing pains in the field, Culpepper has largely looked comfortable, hitting .300/.352/.463 with three homers and nine RBI in 22 games. But his extended stay in St. Paul is less egregious compared to Jenkins.
At 21 years old, the Twins have been understandably careful with Jenkins’s development. It also wouldn’t have been surprising to keep him in the minors all year and allow him to play minor league baseball in 2027 in the event of a lockout. Going 3-for-20 with a home run against a position player in his first week in the majors also validates that thought, but there were plenty of reasons to promote him sooner.
The biggest is that the Twins’ major league outfielders weren’t giving them much. While Byron Buxton and Trevor Larnach hit well enough to keep their jobs, Alan Roden and Austin Martin were anemic at the plate and the Twins even decided to move Luke Keaschall to the outfield in what has become a dreadful experiment.
Maybe Jenkins would have struggled if he were called up earlier in the year and a shoulder injury didn’t help his cause. But promoting either prospect may have been the spark the Twins needed to separate from the pack.
Byron Buxton and Joe Ryan’s post All-Star injuries
The Twins sent multiple players to the All-Star Game for the sixth straight year and Buxton and Ryan earned those nominations with their first-half performance. But after coming up lame in the second half, the Twins began to tail off.
Buxton provided a strong encore to his 2025 season, hitting .271/.328/.575 with 25 homers, 45 RBI and seven stolen bases in the first half. But while he was voted as a starter for the AL, he wasn’t able to play due to a hip injury that required a stint on the injured list. Things have only gotten worse from there as Buxton is hitting .172/.274/.203 with no homers and one RBI in the second half (18 games) and it seems like he’s destined for the operating table this offseason and perhaps a big adjustment coming this offseason.
Ryan’s injury provided a similar effect for the starting rotation. After going 6-5 with a 2.85 ERA in the first half (20 starts), he allowed a 9.39 ERA while losing all three second-half starts after going on the injured list with glute and back strains.
While Ryan is working toward a return, Buxton’s timetable is unknown. Having either All-Star available could have pushed them over the top and had them in a playoff spot by the time the calendar turned to December.
The Twins’ miserable August
The Twins entered August with all kinds of momentum. While Buxton and Ryan were going through injuries, the Twins weathered that storm, going 14-11 during the month of July and convincing the front office to buy at the trade deadline. A big month could have solidified their standing as playoff contenders, but things fell apart from there.
The Twins went 10-16 during the month of August and there were several reasons why. The bullpen, even with three new relievers, struggled mightily. Ryan Jeffers went into a power outage. Trevor Larnach fell off a cliff the moment a trade to the Houston Astros was nixed by owner Jim Crane and a 4-8 record against NL teams was another blow to their playoff hopes.
The worst of it came during a three-game series against the Athletics. Playing one of the worst teams in the AL, the Twins took the opening game 9-6, but dropped the second game 4-2 before blowing a 3-0 lead in a 7-4 loss during the series finale on Aug. 26.
Dropping two of three games was confirmation that the Twins shouldn’t be taken seriously and it was all rolled into one when they hosted the Detroit Tigers this week.
The Twins’ meltdown against the Tigers on Sept. 2
After dropping two of three games to the White Sox at home last weekend, the Twins appeared to have a last gasp while hosting the Tigers. Facing a lineup littered with rookies, the Twins pounded Detroit by a combined score of 26-3 in the first two games, but should have saved some of those runs for the series finale on Wednesday.
All of the Twins' flaws were on display in this meltdown. Dean Kremer only went four innings as part of a weak starting rotation. Minnesota was able to come back from a 5-1 deficit, but couldn’t get the go-ahead run across in the bottom of the eighth inning as Kaelen Culpepper and Walker Jenkins struck out in succession.
The Twins tied the game again in the bottom of the 11th inning and got Keaschall to third base, but a strikeout by Jeffers and a groundout by Kody Clemens sent it to the 12th and the bullpen imploded from there with Nance serving up a two-run homer to Spencer Torkelson and a bases-clearing, three-run double to Javier Baez to seal the 11-6 loss.
With everything the Twins went through, it was the perfect summary of why they’ll miss the playoffs and give them plenty of regret in what could be a long offseason.
Add us as a preferred source on Google