Josh Donaldson drilled a home run into the upper deck Sunday, made a sliding snag-and-spin defensive play to prevent a Cleveland rally and even counseled J.A. Happ on restoring his effectiveness on the mound. But to hear Rocco Baldelli tell it, Donaldson's biggest contribution to the Twins' 8-2 victory, and perhaps even to their 2021 season, came 90 minutes before first pitch.
That's when Donaldson gathered teammates in the clubhouse and delivered an urgent message he believes they needed to hear:
Now is our time.
"This is an important part of our season right now," the 10-year veteran said, pointing out that the last-place Twins play nothing but AL Central opponents for the next 3½ weeks, including 10 games with the first-place White Sox. "I just wanted people to understand the opportunity that's at hand right now, and get our mentality focused on winning ballgames."
They appeared unusually focused Sunday, pounding three home runs, scoring seven times with two outs, and winning back-to-back games at Target Field for the first time in a month. The Twins have won seven of their past nine games, and now leave town off a victory for the first time since mid-April.
"The last couple weeks, we've been putting some games together and playing better baseball, and I just wanted to emphasize, hey, this is the moment, right now," Donaldson said. "Everybody else is starting to get tired. We need to go out there and pick it up a notch."
The offense did, with Donaldson, Andrelton Simmons and Nelson Cruz all connecting on long home runs, the first two coming off Mounds View High grad Sam Hentges.
And Happ certainly did, too, contributing his first quality start since April 28. The lefthander pitched six innings — he is the first Twins pitcher other than Jose Berrios to last that long since May 28 — giving up two runs on six hits and no walks while striking out seven. That, plus three shutout innings from Tyler Duffey and Caleb Thielbar, created the most lopsided Twins victory since their 10-0 thrashing at Cleveland on May 21.
BOXSCORE: Twins 8, Cleveland 2
"He pitches well inside. It's tough to get on his fastball," said Donaldson, who was a teammate of Happ's in Toronto, confers with him often, and on Sunday gave him some advice on turning around his season. "When he's pitching inside, pitching up and down, it makes everything else better."
And getting a lot better is still possible, Donaldson emphasized to his teammates Sunday morning, even for a team that hasn't been closer than 10 games behind Chicago in a month.
"We're getting to that point of the season — the dog days of summer. And especially when you're losing games and not playing up to par, that can beat some guys up," Donaldson said. "But I want to look at it the other way, and say hey, we have so much room for improvement right now. By playing with energy, by focusing and communicating and being aware of our own self and everybody else, that's going to lead to us playing better."
Is it possible? Technically, yes. The Twins are 33-43 as they head to Chicago. By coincidence, that exactly matches the worst 76-game record that any playoff team has ever had: the 1973 Mets and 1981 Royals.
No surprise, Baldelli is a believer.
"J.D. came in today with the intention of firing up this club. … Probably some messages we need to hear as a group," the Twins manager said. "We have an opportunity. We have [86] games to go. We're still at a point where we can go out there and still prove ourselves. … It was an opportunity seized, and we saw some of the results on the field. Now we have to carry it forward."
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