ANAHEIM, CALIF. – When Luis Arraez was last in Southern California, it was for the July 19 All-Star Game. While he was a reserve for the American League team, he was still one of the headliners, as he made the team by leading all of MLB with his .338 batting average.
He was 1-for-2 during his at-bats, as the AL beat the NL 3-2. And it was a great moment of recognition for the Venezuelan, who has always been a stunning hitter but has been a utility player his whole career, playing around the infield for the Twins in 2022.
Since that career high, Arraez returned to the Twins to go 10-for-47 in the following 11 games, a .213 batting average. He drove in only four runs in that time as well.
He seemed to pull out of that slump starting a week ago, and with another three-hit game Saturday, he is hitting 13-for-22 (.591) with three RBI in his past five games. At the start of this recent run — Aug. 6 against Toronto — Arraez collected three hits in a game for the first time since July 23, his first game back from being an All-Star. For someone who had been so hot and so consistent, that constituted a warning sign.
"It's been a long time since I got three hits," Arraez said after that game. "But the last couple of games, I hit the ball hard. I'm a human. I just try to do everything there. Baseball is hard. I try to do my best every time."
Twins manager Rocco Baldelli agreed that no baseball player is immune to streaks of success and slumps. But Arraez particularly is good at not letting a couple of bad games spiral into more.
"He'll go through periods of time just like every hitter in this game where something feels a little bit off. I think he was reacting to some of the pitches he was being thrown, too," Baldelli said. "And whether it was fastballs, even the offspeed pitches, all felt like he was getting a lot of pitches that were tough pitches. Breaking balls at the top of the zone. ... It felt like he was attacking similar pitches and not putting swings on them that he wanted to, and they were probably up in the zone most of the time."
Baldelli added Arraez has been able to make the needed adjustments, though, to overcome that. And he's pulled back into the MLB lead with a .337 batting average.
"Most people go through stretches for like a month and a half. That's more normal for everyone. I don't care who you are," Baldelli said. "I've never seen him go through a stretch for a month and a half, I don't think, or a month, or three weeks, or anything like that. He tends to be a very good adjustment-maker.
"I don't even know what that little stretch was, but I think that little stretch is behind us."
Hope for longer outings?
When Baldelli left starter Tyler Mahle in Friday's game — coming out to the mound with runners on second and third with every intention of putting in Michael Fulmer to nab the final out of the sixth inning — other starting pitchers might have taken notice.
Baldelli has a reputation for pulling starters a little earlier than normal for various reasons, from fatigue to injury worries to liking the reliever matchup better. But Mahle's confident demeanor in Friday's mound visit convinced the manager otherwise.
Mahle did seize that last out to complete six full innings. And fellow starter Chris Archer, who will throw Sunday, said it was encouraging to see Baldelli be flexible and give his pitchers an opportunity to prove themselves.
Archer said he and Baldelli, who already have a close relationship while Mahle hasn't even been with the Twins two weeks since his deadline-day trade, usually discuss what to expect from his starts during the week or even between innings in the game. So there's not often that Archer will have to put up a fight on the mound to stay in the game.
"It tells me that although Tyler is new, [Baldelli] has a lot of confidence in him," Archer said. "A lot of our starters have earned that confidence in the right situation as well. I'm hoping for that opportunity in the future because it helps our bullpen a lot. Not just for myself, but for our whole staff, getting the couple extra outs or even one extra out is huge for the bullpen."
While Mahle has gone at least six innings in both of his Twins starts, the rest of the Twins starters have achieved that only 26 times in 110 chances.
"I always want our pitchers to want to stay in the game, and you want the competitiveness and drive always to come out in those guys. I'll never waver on that," Baldelli said. "… That's not something that's going to happen too often in the games we play, but a lot of that comes down to just what the pitcher on the mound looks like, how he's throwing the ball. I think you really have to do your best to observe the entire situation and then evaluate what's to come.
"… Are we going to have a discussion most of the time? Of course not. But I think it's something that we could possibly see as time goes on with our guys."
