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Bobby Nightengale
@nightengalejr.bsky.social
4.3K followers 150 following 1.3K posts
Minnesota Twins beat writer for @StarTribune.com
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📬 NEW Extra Innings newsletter:

⚾️ Several GMs lauded Derek Shelton’s ability to connect with people. And his visit with Royce Lewis is an example of that.

⚾️ News and notes from the GM Meetings, including the latest on James Rowson.

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As Lewis walked through The Cosmopolitan in Las Vegas, the site of the general managers meetings, and he saw some friendly reporters, he gushed about his new manager. Derek Shelton flew to Texas to meet Lewis near his home before they both, separately, traveled to Vegas. It meant the world to Lewis that Shelton went out of his way to meet with him. And the conversation fired him up. The two didn’t really know each other beforehand, but they quickly formed a bond. That immediate connection, several executives around the league say, is Shelton’s greatest gift.
November 14, 2025 at 5:20 PM
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New Twins manager Derek Shelton: “There are better things ahead. We’re going to build strong relationships and we’re going to have a lot of fun as we move forward. I think people are going to be excited about Twins baseball.”
November 4, 2025 at 7:12 PM
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A Twins-related item from @alexspeier.bsky.social’s Sunday Baseball Notes on their interview with Red Sox bench coach Ramón Vázquez.
Members of the Red Sox were thrilled to hear that the Twins requested an interview with bench coach Ramón Vázquez as part of their search for a manager. Vázquez is heralded as a tremendous baseball mind and strong leader, attributes that helped him manage four teams to winter ball championships in Puerto Rico.
October 19, 2025 at 1:26 PM
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📬 NEW Extra Innings newsletter:

⚾️ What to make of the quiet start to the Twins managerial search, plus pros/cons of the job compared to the other seven openings.

⚾️ How the 11 players the Twins traded factored into playoff races.

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A player development background sounds like a priority. “Certainly for any team, but for mid-market teams, you’re always going to be developing at the big-league level,” Falvey said. “You need someone who’s going to be a partner in that growth and development.” Falvey didn’t blame the previous coaching staff for the stalled development of some of the top young players. Royce Lewis was a below-average hitter this year. Brooks Lee has yet to establish himself in the big leagues. Matt Wallner had trouble because he couldn't hit elevated fastballs. “Those guys were working tirelessly to try and figure that out in development meetings and leaning into that work,” Falvey said. “Ultimately, it didn't land for every one of the players. Sometimes, there is a reality to a different voice and a different direction that is a part of sports that just isn't about one individual moment, one performance, or otherwise that leads to this. Sometimes it's the right time for a change.”
October 10, 2025 at 4:50 PM
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Twins prospect Hendry Mendez homered in his first Arizona Fall League at-bat, which opened its six-week season tonight.

Mendez, who hit well at AA, was acquired from Philadelphia in the Harrison Bader trade.
October 7, 2025 at 1:54 AM
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The Twins enter the offseason with a projected $90M in payroll commitments. @mlbtraderumors.bsky.social just released its projections for arb-eligible players.
October 6, 2025 at 9:52 PM
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Front page of the @stribsports.startribune.com section two years ago today:
“Blasts purge the past” Royce Lewis hit two homers to end the Twins’ 18-game playoff losing streak.
October 4, 2025 at 7:06 PM
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📬 NEW Extra Innings newsletter:

⚾️ How the Twins stacked up vs. the rest of the league at each position (spoiler: Not well).

⚾️ Mailbag Q on the attractiveness of the Twins managerial job.

🫡 A shout out to the retiring Phil Miller.

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Shortstop (1.5 fWAR, 22nd) Games started: Carlos Correa (91), Lee (64), Fitzgerald (5), Castro (2). Correa had one of the worst offensive seasons of his career and Lee has yet to prove he can be an everyday major league hitter. Defense, for both players, was a big issue. Sports Info Solutions rated Correa’s play at shortstop as negative-11 defensive runs saved (Correa moved to third base after he was traded to Houston), and Lee was rated negative-8 defensive runs saved because of his lack of range. Third base (1.1 fWAR, 20th) Games started: Royce Lewis (92), Lee (32), Bride (16), Jose Miranda (9), Castro (9), Fitzgerald (4). One of the important projects for the next manager is bringing the best out of Lewis. He had more homers (15 vs. 13) and the same number of RBI (52) in 164 fewer plate appearances during the 2023 season.
October 3, 2025 at 4:07 PM
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Jhoan Duran stopped by the Twins dugout during batting practice today, greeting Pablo López and others.

www.startribune.com/former-twins...
September 27, 2025 at 8:29 PM
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📬 NEW Extra Innings newsletter from Phil Miller:

⚾️ Behind the scenes on the popular “celeb look-alike” feature at Target Field.

⚾️ How the Twins could proceed with their outfield logjam.

⚾️ Two players opting to train in MN this winter.

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Most fans seem surprised to find themselves on the scoreboard, and some nod in agreement. A few seem offended, a risk that Henschen said he always tries to avoid. “I’m happy to say I don’t think we’ve ever got a middle finger, but there are people who shake their head no,” Henschen said. “We don’t want to have it construed as a negative feature, someone you don’t want to look like. We try to be sensitive. Like, hey, this person has a big nose — we wouldn’t do that.” And the Twins game-experience staff takes pride in how popular the feature has become. “Except for the Kiss Cam, the lookalike feature gets the most requests for photos of what was on the scoreboard,” said Henschen, who has helped produce the Twins’ in-game features since 2003. “Sometimes one of our targets will start nodding as soon as the celebrity photo goes up, like, yep, I know that’s going to be me. Those are the most fun.”
September 26, 2025 at 4:54 PM
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📬 NEW Extra Innings newsletter:

⚾️ Byron Buxton, in a comeback player of the year type season, is pressing ahead in the final weeks.

⚾️ A unique (maybe historic) pregame moment for Twins’ Carson McCusker.

⚾️ Updates on trade acquisitions.

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“If a person can play with something, he's going to play with it,” Baldelli said. “He'll play even when something's busted. He's just going to keep playing until no person could play with something. Then you have to drag him off. That's how he's always been. “The reason he hadn't played in games before is because it's impossible. If something is in two pieces, you're not going to be able to play. But pain doesn't keep him off the field.”
September 19, 2025 at 4:10 PM
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Christian Vázquez taking batting practice today. He had a PICC line in his arm for four weeks after an infection in his left shoulder.

He hopes to begin a rehab assignment next week.
September 12, 2025 at 9:32 PM
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📬 NEW Extra Innings newsletter:

⚾️ Simeon Woods Richardson & Taj Bradley, two of the nine Black starting pitchers in MLB, went through the DREAM series together.

⚾️ A pitching prospect that shouldn’t fall under the radar.

⚾️ Mailbag questions.

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When Bradley was traded to the Twins at the trade deadline, and later promoted to the major league rotation, the two young players chatted about how it was their first chance to finally pitch together. They are both aware how rare it is to have two Black starting pitchers on the same big-league team (Woods Richardson quickly noted the Cincinnati Reds also have two with Hunter Greene and rookie Chase Burns). In fact, neither can remember playing alongside another Black pitcher in the same rotation at any level in their baseball careers. “We talked about it when I first got traded here,” Bradley said. “We were excited. It’s like we notice it, for sure.”
September 12, 2025 at 3:56 PM
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Byron Buxton, who was diagnosed with a bruised knee after he was hit by a pitch, hit his 30th homer of the season in the Twins win.

He talked to Phil Miller in KC about his motivation for the last month of the season ➡️ www.startribune.com/bryon-buxton...
Buxton spoke before the game about the Twins’ sorry state and the challenge of playing September games that mean little. Not hard at all, he said. “When things are not going right, you can still make things happen on the baseball field to try to jump-start things a little bit. It’s who I am. That’s what I’m trying to do,” the most-senior Twin said. “People look at me quite a bit to make sure I’m doing what I’m supposed to be doing as one of the leaders on the team. So, I want to keep going out there and battling. Try to get us going.”
September 8, 2025 at 1:45 AM
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“If we had re-signed Sonny, I can guarantee we would have been in the playoffs last year, and we’d probably be in a better spot this year.”

Joe Ryan talked with Phil Miller on the Twins’ “biggest mistake” in the last two years.

Story @startribune.com ➡️ www.startribune.com/biggest-mist...
“Who knows how far we’d have gone?” Ryan said of the Twins’ failure to reach the 2024 playoffs. “But now we’d have two straight years in the playoffs, we’d be riding that a little bit, maybe it makes it a little easier [for the Pohlad family] to sell the team. Maybe we make other moves if they think we’re really close to a championship.”
September 7, 2025 at 2:24 PM
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📬 NEW Extra Innings newsletter from Phil Miller:

⚾️ Ryan Jeffers claimed a prestigious corner locker in the Twins home clubhouse.

⚾️ Updates on the 11 players the Twins shipped away at the trade deadline.

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When Ryan Jeffers walked into the Twins clubhouse one week ago today, he found his locker completely empty, his uniforms gone, even the “Jeffers 27” nameplate removed from above it. Traded? Waived? Sent to the minors? Of course not. Turns out, he was being honored. In a very traditional way, like so many aspects of Major League Baseball. “Rod didn’t tell me. He said he likes it to be a surprise,” Jeffers said, referring to Twins equipment and clubhouse manager Rod McCormick. “We came back from the road, and I just found my stuff over here.”
September 5, 2025 at 3:51 PM
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Twins announced a tentatively scheduled 8:10 p.m. first pitch as they try to avoid being swept by the White Sox.
September 5, 2025 at 12:12 AM
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Small crowd at Target Field for the Twins-White Sox game tonight.
September 2, 2025 at 11:45 PM
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From Kristie Ackert’s story on catcher Alex Jackson handling Taj Bradley’s pregame scouting last year:
August 31, 2025 at 7:54 PM
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📬 NEW Extra Innings newsletter:

⚾️ How sneakerhead Bailey Ober developed arguably the best shoe game in baseball with the help of a local content creator.

⚾️ An under-the-radar roster battle for 2026 is underway.

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After a brief discussion on what size-15 shoe to wear, Ober wore a pair of Nike Kobe 6 Protro “Reverse Grinch” for a start at Yankee Stadium on June 4, 2024. The red sneakers with green laces were a hit, receiving attention from ESPN’s "SportsCenter." “I’m born and raised in Minnesota, and I’ve always been a Twins fan, so I was just like this is fun to do,” said McClay, who has more than 190,000 followers on Instagram and 630,000 followers on TikTok. “We’ve talked in the past and I knew he was a shoe guy. I was like, there is no reason you can’t be wearing cool stuff.”
August 29, 2025 at 3:55 PM
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The Twins’ 2026 season begins March 26 at Baltimore. Home opener is April 3 vs. Tampa Bay.

The Field of Dreams game, which is still being finalized, will be on a day in the Aug. 14-16 weekend.
August 26, 2025 at 6:00 PM
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📬 NEW Extra Innings newsletter from Phil Miller:

-A convo with groundskeeper Larry DiVito on subtle changes around Target Field.

-MLB expansion to 32 teams could have a dramatic effect on the Twins.

-Royce Lewis’ shoe collection.

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We open this week with a thank you to Gayle S. of St. Paul, whose email last weekend initiated an interesting (I hope you agree) conversation with Larry DiVito, the only head groundskeeper in Target Field history. Gayle asked: “Why is the triangle of dirt directly in front of home plate at Target Field so much darker than the dirt anywhere else on the field?” I can’t say I had noticed, but it gave me a chance to visit Larry in his dungeon located just behind the visitors’ dugout, a dark room filled with more weather data screens than your typical weather-obsessed local TV station. He answered the question — we’ll get to that in a moment — but it became an entry point into a wider conversation about changes to the ballpark, some subtle and most less so, in its 16 years as the Twins’ home. For instance: Have you noticed the most visible change to the outfield in several years? I confess, I hadn’t.
August 22, 2025 at 4:44 PM
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What did the Twins learn from last year’s collapse — and this season’s flop?

Pablo López to @MillerStrib: “The last year has not been fun, but I really think we can make it serve as a trampoline to change things here.”

Story ➡️ www.startribune.com/minnesota-tw...
“It’s not what any of us wanted. But it’s the reality we have to face, because this — not winning, not being the champions that we believed we could be — is what our reality is. So let’s make it an opportunity to really reshape and remake what it means to be a Twin,” López said. “The last year has not been fun, but I really think we can make it serve as a trampoline to change things here. So we’ll bite the bullet and Buxton, Joe, Bailey, me, Royce — we’ll do our due diligence and really take this opportunity to learn from this, take the positives from that and help the new guys find their paths, and work as hard as we possibly can to change it.”
August 19, 2025 at 4:41 PM
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Five minutes before first pitch, it’s raining and the tarp is pulled back over the infield. Twins and Tigers will start in a delay.
August 16, 2025 at 12:07 AM
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Pablo López is throwing his simulated game now.
August 15, 2025 at 8:14 PM