6 observations as Twins hit speed bump with tough setback vs. Nats

The vibes had been better lately, but there’s no getting around the fact that the Twins' 15-2 loss to the Nationals on Wednesday was an ugly one. Here are six observations from a long night.

Ober can do this, but he has to locate
We’ve all spent a lot of time over the past year or so talking about Bailey Ober’s velocity -- whether it’s coming back, and how effective he can be without it. For the most part, this season has provided support for the notion that Ober can be a plenty effective Major League starter at the 88 mph or so that he currently averages. But there’s one catch: he absolutely has to locate.

For the first two innings Wednesday, Ober stayed out of the middle of the plate. Then his pitches started to find more of the plate, and by the end of his outing, he paid for it. In particular, Jacob Young’s single and the Drew Millas homer that immediately followed it came on pitches that got far too much plate.

Wallner is coming around
Manager Derek Shelton is still picking his spots for Matt Wallner, who sat on Tuesday against hard-throwing right-hander Cade Cavalli. But Wallner got a big hit on Sunday, and then followed it with an RBI single and a massive homer on Wednesday. As Wallner himself said Sunday, he can get as hot as anybody. He’s not there yet, but the signs are encouraging.

The homers were coming
Over the season’s first three weeks, Twins pitchers were keeping the ball in the park. Over their first 23 games, they allowed only 14 homers. Lately, that’s very much not the case. Minnesota has allowed 23 homers over the last 15 days, the most of any team in the Major Leagues.

Here’s the thing: they’re not pitching all that much differently. The batted-ball data against them hasn’t changed much. They’re not giving up more fly balls. They’re giving up a few more barrels, but not many. But through April 20, per FanGraphs, Twins pitchers were allowing homers on 5.6 percent of fly balls -- the lowest rate in baseball. Since then (entering Wednesday), it was 11.8 percent -- ranking 14th. As the weather has warmed, the ball has started leaving the park.

Morris’ role changing?
Andrew Morris is a starter by trade, and he’s been used as a multi-inning reliever for the most part since his recall from Triple-A on April 11. His performance after Joe Ryan came out of Sunday’s game due to injury is one of the best individual showings by a Twins reliever this year. But in the game before that, he faced only five batters, and on Wednesday, he faced four.

Part of that, of course, was because he gave up some hard contact. But if the idea was for Morris to eat innings, he’d have stayed in longer. It appears that Morris may be moving toward a later, shorter role.

Keep an eye on third base
I got a question on social media about whether third base is now a platoon. And I wouldn’t go that far, but I would encourage you to remember that Shelton has frequently referred to roles and playing time as being a meritocracy. So just as Wallner saw his playing time diminish a bit as his slump deepened and Austin Martin heated up, it won’t be shocking if you start seeing Shelton be more selective with matchups for Royce Lewis.

That doesn’t mean they’re giving up on Lewis. It doesn’t mean Tristan Gray is going to start against every right-hander. It just means ... keep an eye on it, because it won’t be surprising if you see the balance of at-bats tilt a little bit.

Mikolas wasn’t what they expected
Twins hitters didn’t have a good night against Miles Mikolas, as evidenced by eight ground-ball outs to second base in Mikolas’ 5 1/3 innings. Some of that is on them, but also, Mikolas pitched well and a little bit differently than they might have expected.

Two things changed from what he’s shown this year and last year. One, he threw harder. Mikolas averaged 93.8 mph on his four-seamer and 93.5 on his sinker, both more than a mile per hour over his 2026 averages and a good bit up from ’25 as well. Two, he threw more of them. On the year, Mikolas has thrown fewer than 50 percent fastballs. On Wednesday, he threw 59 percent.