Game 126: Braves at Twins

First Pitch (CT):6:40 PM
TV: Twins.TV
Radio: TIBN/830 WCCO/102.9 The Wolf /Audacy App
Know Yo’ Foe:Battery Power

Fresh off a sweep where the lineup went mostly dormant outside of the 1st inning yesterday, the Twins have finally summoned reinforcements to get the bats rolling: Alex Jackson.

Now, you may be thinking, is this the same Alex Jackson that has been needlessly taking a bench spot as a third catcher since Ryan Jeffers’ return a month ago? The same one who is taking away what could be a useful role player who could do something like hit against righties? Or pinch run or be a late defensive sub? Yes. That one. After being off the 40-man roster for 72 hours, GM Jeremy Zoll got cold feet and brought him back after Austin Martin went on the IL this morning.

While it would be fun to see Walker Jenkins or Emmanuel Rodriguez (or to a lesser extent, Matt Wallner) up with the Twins, I do get the lineup logistics with holding off there. To get one of those lefty bats into the lineup, one of Trevor Larnach, Byron Buxton, Luke Keaschall, Kody Clemens, Josh Bell, or Royce Lewis would likely need to be removed from the lineup, which just isn’t going to happen right now as those are all their best hitters (we can quibble about Clemens who has been pretty terrible for two months, but he’s done enough to keep his spot at this point).

This isn’t even a dig at Jackson, it’s just a fact. In the best case scenario for any ballgame, Twins fans aren’t even aware Jackson is on the team. In the past 3 weeks, Jackson has started 0 games, had 1 plate appearance, and played just four innings in the field. It’s a complete punting of a roster spot from a team whose offense is in the bottom 10 in nearly every offensive category of substance since the All-Star Break.

Maybe this group of players aren’t ready or never will contribute, but it would be a better use of a roster spot than Jackson collecting dust at the end of the bench.

• Aaron Sabato: 1.114 OPS vs LHP this season
• Ben Ross: right-handed utility player with a 1.011 OPS vs lefties in 2026. Think Ryan Kreidler part two (not great, still more useful than Jackson)
• Kala’i Rosario: he’s struggled vs lefties this year, but he put up a .900+ OPS against them each season from 2023-2025.
• Gabriel Gonzalez: honestly not a great season from the young righty, but there’s potential and he can play LF vs LHP
• Kyler Fedko: out for the season with an ACL tear, but probably still faster than Jackson.

And that’s all before we get to the slew of right-handed bats released by bad teams over the past few weeks: Starling Marte, Gabriel Arias, Jorge Soler, Marcel Ozuna, and Joey Wiemer have demonstrated some ability to hit left handed pitching in the recent past and would be worth a flier.

Instead, we get to be one of three teams currently carrying three catchers. The others are the St. Louis Cardinals, who are only here on a technicality since All-Star Ivan Herrera is still technically a catcher despite 80% of his playing time coming at DH. And the last team is the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim, a team you haven’t wanted to be mentioned with for over a decade.

No time like the present to get things going against a lefty! Twins legend Martin Perez is on the bump for Atlanta, and the book on him is largely the same as it was in 2019 when he was in Minnesota: he walks too many, doesn’t strike enough out, but gets enough weak ground balls to keep his overall numbers palatable.

It feels all doom-and-gloom, but the Twins are somehow still only a 1.5 games out of a playoff spot and have a very easy schedule after this week. From next Monday on, Minnesota has only three series against teams currently with a winning record. One against the Yankees and two against the White Sox (who are still the White Sox despite currently leading this terrible division). Weather the storm and get out of this week at .500 and everything’s looking pretty good from there. Let’s start things out right.

Lineups