Twins try to avoid trade chatter, but ‘we all see what the date is’

LOS ANGELES Willi Castro and Danny Coulombe two veterans on expiring contracts who could be business targets for other teams both say they re doing the best to try to avoid business deadline chatter But as July draws nearer it s getting harder and harder to avoid for now Coulombe announced he s trying to stay off of social media and increasingly harder to not think about especially when both could be on the move next week More than anything it s the stress it puts on families the logistical part of it It s definitely on your mind stated Coulombe who has two young sons with his wife But you know you can t do anything about it If you think about it you can t really control any of it Control what you control and keep going That last phrase has been thrown around the Twins clubhouse a lot lately with so much uncertainty around the transaction deadline In the clubhouse the focus within those walls is on winning each night s match rather than what the front office might be thinking But the Twins entered Tuesday with eight games remaining before the deadline and were before a late contest against the Dodgers four games under and five games back of a Wild Card berth with six teams to pass I don t tend to spend a lot of my strength on worrying about the exchange deadline manager Rocco Baldelli explained If we play really good baseball from here until the arrangement deadline we re going to keep playing and perhaps not going to be trading anyone we ll apparently be looking to acquire players We ll be playing that sort of way for the rest of the season with that sort of mindset That s what I want and that s my goal That s all I m worried about right now The Twins lost three of the first four games on this road trip two to the major league-worst Colorado Rockies and look increasingly likely to be sellers at least to certain extent You can say that maybe the next couple weeks of baseball might change the class of the season in one direction or another Baldelli explained That s the reality of it That s what we have to own We have to do our part to keep our group playing well and together and not worry about it in a negative sense think about it in a positive light and try to go in the direction that we want to go But the Twins are running out of time to make a affair to the front office to not deal pieces at the deadline The Twins have not sold at the deadline since when they traded Nelson Cruz Jose Berrios Hansel Robles and J A Happ Among the returns for those trades they received Joe Ryan and Simeon Woods Richardson two members of the current rotation We all see what the date is the time that is coming center fielder Byron Buxton explained We know the situation So yeah it s definitely thought about for sure Former Twin Rich Hill still at it It wouldn t have seemed particularly likely back in when Rich Hill pitched for the Twins that five years later he d still be making major league starts Then again not much about Hill s career has been conventional At age Hill started for the Kansas City Royals on Tuesday against the Chicago Cubs With it Hill has now pitched in parts of major league seasons and has appeared in games for different franchises tying Edwin Jackson for the majority of in MLB history Hill was drafted by the Cubs in and his journey has taken him around the majors and to independent ball over the past two decades It also took him to Minnesota for one season he pitched to a earned-run average in eight starts during the pandemic-shortened season among his various stops Never bet against Rich Hill ever Baldelli one of his several former managers revealed It s absolutely amazing what he s done with his career He turned himself into what he is and then persevered and continued to this day He loves the meeting He loves pitching He doesn t mind being different and doing things his own way Briefly Bailey Ober hip will make a second rehab start on Friday for the Triple-A Saints In his first he threw scoreless innings though his velocity was still down The Twins claimed catcher Jhonny Pereda off waivers from the Oakland Athletics and optioned him to Triple-A To make room on the -man roster fellow catcher Jair Camargo was designated for assignment Related Articles Twins come a sparse feet from tying contest in loss to Dodgers Willi Castro a expected business candidate hopes to be Twin for life Nobody else is really capable of doing it Twins impressed by Dodgers Shohei Ohtani Saints win second road series of season at Louisville Royce Lewis hits a pair of home runs in sponsorship of Joe Ryan in Twins win