The Minnesota Twins hope they have found their footing right as they return home.
Minnesota, which staggered to 16 losses in 21 games from April 15 through Friday, showed signs of breaking out of its funk with back-to-back wins on the road over its division rival, the Cleveland Guardians, this weekend. The victories gave the Twins their first series win since April 13-15 against the Boston Red Sox.
Now comes a nine-game homestand.
The Twins will open things up when they face the Miami Marlins on Tuesday night in Minneapolis. It marks the Twins’ first home game since May 3, after which the club headed out of town for a six-game road trip.
Twins manager Derek Shelton is optimistic after his bullpen stepped up in a 5-4 win on Sunday. Yoendrys Gomez, who joined the team two days earlier, hurled a scoreless ninth inning to pick up the third save of his career.
“I think the credit goes to our baseball ops group because this is a guy we just acquired,” Shelton said. “We’re continuing to observe and make decisions on our bullpen. … Really appreciate, in Gomez’s case, he had a layoff in Tampa, then (pitched) three days in a row.”
The Marlins also will go for their third straight victory after posting back-to-back wins against the Washington Nationals this weekend. They won 8-7 on Saturday and 5-2 on Sunday after dropping Friday’s series opener 3-2.
Christopher Morel will try to build upon a successful game Sunday, when he notched his first RBI with the Marlins after struggling for much of the start of the season.
Marlins manager Clayton McCullough said Morel has proved to be a great teammate.
“When you come back, it’s easy to try to press the panic button a little bit and want things to happen quickly,” McCullough said. “Just got to hang in there and just kind of keep taking good at-bats. I’m going to continue to give him an opportunity to try to get into a rhythm and go, because he does have the ability to slug from the right side.”
Twins right-hander Bailey Ober (3-2, 4.19 ERA) will make his ninth start of the season. He will try to bounce back from his most recent outing on Wednesday against the Nationals, who tagged him for five runs on six hits in five innings.
This will be Ober’s second career start against the Marlins. In his first meeting in 2024, he allowed four runs on eight hits in five innings and took the loss.
Marlins right-hander Eury Perez (2-4, 5.01) also will make his ninth start of the season. Perez has lost each of his past three starts and is searching for his first victory since April 19 against the Milwaukee Brewers.
Command has proved to be a challenge for Perez through the first six weeks of the season. He has issued 4.6 walks per nine innings, compared with 3.0 walks per nine innings in 2025. His strikeout numbers have not fluctuated, as he is averaging 9.8 strikeouts per nine innings this year, compared with 9.9 in 2025.
Perez was nearly perfect in his lone career start against the Twins in 2025. He pitched six shutout innings and allowed only one hit en route to getting the victory.
–Field Level Media
