PHILADELPHIA — Royce Lewis wondered out loud if his home run last weekend might have come in his last game as a Twin at Target Field.
Joe Ryan believed he had been traded for a few minutes at the July trade deadline because of an erroneous post on social media. Now, he acknowledges that his future is “so far out of my control.”
The thought of a potential trade has crossed Pablo López’s mind, as well, particularly because one of his aunts often searches his name on social media and asks him what he think might happen.
The Twins officially concluded their season on Sunday with a 2-1 to walk-off loss to the Philadelphia Phillies at Citizens Bank Park. Former Twin Max Kepler tied the game in the eighth inning with a home run, and outfielder Harrison Bader — dealt at the deadline — scored the game-winning run on a sacrifice fly.
They are moving on to the postseason, while their former teammates begin an offseason filled with uncertainty.
Will manager Rocco Baldelli be back for his eighth season after missing the playoffs for the fourth time in five years? Will the coaching staff remain in place? And what of the roster, one that was dismantled at the trade deadline and went on to lose 92 games? Will there be more trades?
The offseason, if anything, figures to be an interesting one for the Twins as they chart their path forward.
“I have zero clue what’s going to happen,” center fielder Byron Buxton said.
This season, Baldelli admitted, felt like two. There was the first four months, in which they started slow and pulled themselves back over .500 with a 13-game winning streak but struggled to find the consistency they were looking for. And then there was the final two months after 10 regulars were traded to contending teams, giving rookies and younger players an opportunity to show what they can do with the increased playing time.
Though the Twins adopted a new, more aggressive style of play — one they very well could take into next season — the results in the final two months were predictably underwhelming without the services of five members of the bullpen, four position players and a starting pitcher.
“I think we’re definitely entering a new era organization-wise,” López said. “I guess we might know the direction of the team. It’s probably rebuilding the younger group, younger side of things, more aggressive. Kind of find that fearless mentality.”
López, who ended the year on the injured list after hurting his arm while making a diving play, returned near the end of the season after missing more than three months on the injured list with a teres major sprain.
The team he left and the team he came back to couldn’t have been more different. When he was hurt, the team was in the Wild Card mix; when he returned, the Twins were well out of contention, and there was a whole new cast of characters around him.
“Did I think it was going to fall apart like that? Not at all,” López said. “I didn’t want it to, and didn’t think it was going to. It was painful to watch in a sentimental way, an emotional way. It was sad.”
Nobody could have predicted it, really. A 9-18 June and a mediocre July where the Twins couldn’t gain much traction sealed the fate of a team that had collapsed during the final six weeks of the previous season, leading to the sell off.
And now, what Baldelli described as a “winter of work,” begins. The season ended on Sunday, but in some ways, the work has just begun.
“At the end of the day, I see the big picture and the decisions they’ve made, and I think they’re good decisions and the trajectory of the organization is positive,” Ryan said. “Hopefully we’ll make a couple of other moves and see where that goes.”
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