Kremer strong in Twins debut, leading parade of Deadline acquisitions

KANSAS CITY – This is the way it goes over six months of baseball: Sometimes, even a very good lineup struggles to score runs. But man, is the timing for the Twins’ current offensive lull unfortunate.

Noah Cameron stifled Minnesota yet again on Wednesday, ruining an effective debut for Trade Deadline acquisition Dean Kremer, as the Twins fell to the Royals, 2-1, at Kauffman Stadium. It was a capper on a dispiriting day, one that started with the news that Joe Ryan was returning to Minnesota for evaluation for a potential injury.

At least Kremer was good, though. He looked just like the pitcher the Twins' front office thought it was getting when it acquired him from the Orioles, pitching five effective innings with a run on three hits. He struck out two and walked two, but simply got no help from his offense.

“I'm excited to be here,” Kremer said. “I'm excited to meet all these guys I've played against for a bit now. But I thought it went well. I really enjoyed working with the pitching guys and [Ryan] Jeffers back there today.”

As a matter of fact, all of the Twins’ July pitching acquisitions appeared in the game, and overall they performed well. Tommy Nance, A.J. Minter and Jeff Hoffman all pitched in relief of Kremer. Minter allowed a solo homer that was the difference in the game, but even so, this was a well-pitched game, all of it by pitchers who were on other teams four weeks ago.

The Twins set out to acquire rotation depth in case of an injury -- a circumstance that may have arrived sooner than anticipated -- and they did that with Kremer. They set out to bolster a bullpen that was far too thin, and they did that with Nance and especially Minter and Hoffman.

Now they just need to find a way to start scoring runs again. Since the All-Star break, the Twins are 25th in the Major Leagues in runs scored (64), 28th in batting average (.216) and 29th in on-base percentage (.280).

Their power has begun to show itself again in recent days. Minnesota had homered in five straight games, with a total of 10 long balls in that stretch, before Cameron shut them down on Wednesday. But even when so, they’re not getting enough traffic on the bases for those homers to have the kind of impact they otherwise might.

“I wish I had an answer for that,” said manager Derek Shelton. “I don’t think our approach has been that bad. … But we just, I’m going to say it again, we’ve done a good job all year of figuring out a way to create baserunners. We’re in a stretch now these last two days [where] we’re not.”

And it was especially unfortunate on Wednesday, when the pitching looked exactly like they drew it up. Kremer could potentially have gone longer -- he threw plenty of strikes -- but the Royals did a good job of fouling off pitches and extending at-bats. And after some recent rough starts to wrap up his time with the Orioles, it was a good sign for him to have success in his Twins debut.

Then he handed it to the reconfigured bullpen, a string of pitchers the Twins believe will give them a chance to win most close games.

“There's a lot of talent on this pitching staff, from the guys that we acquired and the guys that have been here previously, so I'm excited to see what these guys can do,” said Kremer.

Now they just need some run support.