MINNEAPOLIS — Saying the Yankees have beaten the Twins with regularity is like saying there’s a bit of rush-hour foot traffic at Grand Central Station.
It doesn’t quite cover it.
Because the Yankees’ record against the Twins, including the postseason, since 2002 is among the more inconceivable statistics in baseball over the last 25 years: 125-45, a winning percentage of .735.
But in the latest example of “That’s baseball, Suzyn” when it comes to the sport’s unpredictability, the playing-for-everything Yankees came out listless Monday night and managed all of two hits in a 7-0 loss to the season-was-over-long-ago Twins in front of a crowd of 22,001 at Target Field that reacted more surprised than anything else.
“Just not a good night for us offensively,” Aaron Boone said.
The loss all but finished the Yankees (83-67) insofar as winning the division as it dropped them five games behind the AL East-leading Blue Jays with 12 games to play (really a six-game lead as the Blue Jays won the season series over the Yankees, 8-5). The Yankees’ lead over the Red Sox, who were off Monday, for the league’s top wild-card spot was trimmed to one game.
The Yankees played like a team that arrived here in the early morning after dropping the series finale against the Red Sox at Fenway Park late Sunday night, striking out 14 times against a Twins pitching staff that is among the worst in the game. Simeon Woods Richardson, who came in 6-4 with a 4.58 ERA, struck out a career-high 11 over six innings in which he allowed two hits and three walks.
It was the kind of performance that all but screamed “letdown” given the Yankees were coming off a 7-5 stretch against four straight playoff contenders — Houston, Toronto, Detroit and Boston — to face a Twins team that came in 65-84, and one that, organizationally, punted on the season months ago.
“Not on purpose, that’s for sure,” said third baseman Ryan McMahon, who had his usual standout game in the field but went 0-for-3 with two strikeouts. “It’s the game of baseball and it’ll humble you real quick, but we’ve got to get back to it tomorrow.”
Carlos Rodon (16-9, 3.11) wasn’t bad, allowing two runs, five hits and a walk over six innings in which he struck out four. The lefthander departed with the Yankees very much in the game down just 2-0 but Luke Weaver, who brought a 7.27 ERA in his previous 10 games into the night, blew up spectacularly, recording just one out as the Twins scored five runs to make it 7-0. The key blow was Austin Martin’s one-out, three-run double.
“That was trash,” Weaver said of his night. “The body just wasn’t on time, it wasn’t aligned with what I was trying to execute and do. I felt like I was fighting myself the whole time. Mentally just trying to overcome it, have a good mindset, stay within myself, and those two things just weren’t coming together.”
Richardson allowed one hit — a sharp single by Paul Goldschmidt — over the first three innings before his team got on the board in the bottom half.
Jhonny Pereda led off with a double and Edouard Julien followed with a grounder back up the middle that Jose Caballero, who for the moment has supplanted Anthony Volpe as the everyday shortstop, mishandled (the play was somehow scored a base hit) to put runners at the corners. Rodon struck out leadoff man Byron Buxton swinging at a 94-mph fastball and got Martin to hit a sharp grounder to short for a potential double-play ball. Martin, however, beat Jazz Chisholm Jr.’s low relay throw to first — after Caballero was slow getting the out of his glove — which allowed Pereda to score to make it 1-0.
Brooks Lee hit a leadoff homer off a first-pitch 92-mph fastball in the fifth to make it 2-0.
Rodon didn’t want to hear about the plays not made behind him or the offense getting nothing going against Minnesota pitching.
“I go back in that game, there’s a couple of pitches that I can look at,” Rodon said. “Obviously, the fastball to Lee that was left over the heart of the plate in an 0-0 count, need a better spot with that … the changeup [to Pereda in the third] was up in the zone, need a better spot with that. Just a couple of pitches I want back to keep that game tighter and give our boys a better chance at winning that game.”
A bit harsh, of course, as Rodon was one of the few Monday night who did give the Yankees a chance.
Erik Boland started in Newsday’s sports department in 2002. He covered high school and college sports, then shifted to the Jets beat. He has covered the Yankees since 2009.
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