Minnesota Twins

From Washington to the Twin Cities

The club that plays at Target Field today did not begin in Minnesota, or even in the major leagues. Its lineage runs back to the Kansas City Blues, a minor-league side of 1894, which relocated to the capital in 1901 and became the Washington Senators, one of the founding members of the American League. For most of the next six decades the Senators were a punchline. The line that followed them around was that Washington was first in war, first in peace and last in the American League.

There was one great exception. In 1924 the Senators beat the New York Giants in a seven-game World Series, the only championship the franchise won in Washington. Pennants followed in 1925 and 1933, and then a long slide. By 1960 owner Calvin Griffith was under financial pressure and looking for a way out. He found it in the upper Midwest. In 1961 the team moved to Minneapolis-St Paul and took the name of the two cities it now served: the Minnesota Twins.

Two Octobers that still define the club

The Twins have played in three homes since arriving. Metropolitan Stadium in Bloomington held them from 1961 to 1981, the Hubert H. Humphrey Metrodome from 1982 to 2009, and Target Field in downtown Minneapolis from 2010 onward. The flagpole that stood at the Met now rises on the plaza outside Target Field and is raised before games by military personnel, one of the few physical threads connecting the current park to the first.

It was inside the Metrodome that the franchise's two Minnesota championships were won. In 1987 the Twins beat the St Louis Cardinals in the World Series. Four years later, in 1991, they beat the Atlanta Braves in a seven-game series that is still discussed as one of the best ever played. Those two Octobers gave the club its retired numbers and its folk heroes: Harmon Killebrew (3), Tony Oliva (6), Kent Hrbek (14), Bert Blyleven (28), Rod Carew (29), Kirby Puckett (34) and Jim Kaat (36), with Joe Mauer's 7 added later for the hometown catcher who carried the club through the 2000s.

Target Field and the drought that finally ended

Target Field opened on 12 April 2010 with a capacity of 38,544, and the club has won nine American League Central titles in all: 2002, 2003, 2004, 2006, 2009, 2010, 2019, 2020 and 2023. The 2019 side won 101 games, the second-highest total in franchise history. Regular-season success, though, kept running into the same wall in October. From 2004 to 2023 the Twins lost 18 consecutive postseason games, a run that became the longest of its kind in major North American sport.

The streak broke in 2023. An 87-75 team won the division and then beat Toronto in the Wild Card round, the club's first playoff win since 2004 and first series win since 2002. For a moment the trajectory looked upward. Two seasons later it had reversed.

The fire sale, the sale that never happened, and a new manager

The 2025 season finished 70-92, fourth in the AL Central and 18 games behind Cleveland, the club's first losing year since 2022. Elimination came on 13 September. The record only tells part of it. At the July trade deadline the front office moved 11 players off the 40-man roster, including closer Jhoan Duran, reliever Griffin Jax, pitcher Louis Varland, infielder Willi Castro and shortstop Carlos Correa, who waived his no-trade clause to return to Houston in a deal that saw Minnesota send 30 million dollars along with him. Former Twin Trevor Plouffe called it a bloodbath. Many observers read the moves as payroll-clearing ahead of a sale. Home attendance averaged 22,108, 24th in the majors and the lowest since 2021.

The sale, in the end, did not happen. The Pohlad family had begun exploring one in the autumn of 2024, but instead sold minority stakes. On 17 December 2025 Major League Baseball approved non-controlling interests for Glick Family Investments, a New York venture capital firm; a group of Minnesota business leaders led by George Hicks; and Craig Leipold, owner of the NHL's Minnesota Wild. Tom Pohlad, then 45, was named controlling owner, replacing his younger brother Joe after three years as executive chair. Reporting at the time put the family's debt at around 500 million dollars, driven by pandemic-era crowd losses and a collapsed regional television contract, and valued the franchise at between 1.5 and 1.7 billion dollars.

On the field the change was just as sharp. Rocco Baldelli was dismissed on 29 September 2025 after seven seasons, and Derek Shelton was hired in October to replace him.

2026: meaningful September games, if only just

Shelton's first season has been an improvement on the last without being a revival. In the second week of September the Twins stood at 69-77, fourth in the Central and trailing the division-leading Chicago White Sox. The rotation has been built around Joe Ryan, who led the 2025 staff with a 3.42 ERA over 171 innings, alongside Taj Bradley, Dean Kremer, Bailey Ober, Zebby Matthews and Connor Prielipp, with Yoendrys Gomez collecting 22 saves as closer. The schedule had one novelty: on 13 August the club played the MLB at Field of Dreams game in Dyersville, Iowa, against Philadelphia, losing 7-1 in front of 7,163 people.

The wild card race has stayed within sight but not within reach. After a 5-1 home win over the White Sox on 30 August the Twins were 65-72 and four games behind Cleveland for the final spot, with Toronto, Baltimore and Texas in between. The same weekend brought two of the season's most telling roster moves. Byron Buxton, the centre fielder who hit 35 home runs in 2025 and completed the first cycle in Target Field history on 12 July that year, went on the 10-day injured list with a right hip impingement, his third stint since early July for the same problem. And Walker Jenkins, the club's top prospect, was called up before the Friday game and went 2-for-9 with a double, a run batted in, a walk and a stolen base over his first three games, with reliever Woo-Suk Go designated for assignment to make room and later outrighted to Triple-A St Paul.

What a night at Target Field is like

Baseball has no support act and no setlist. A Twins home game is nine innings, and what surrounds it is the ballpark itself. Target Field sits at 1 Twins Way on the western edge of downtown, with the METRO Blue and Green light rail lines dropping off at Target Field Station just outside Gate 6. Since 2025 fans have been able to use facial-recognition Go-Ahead Entry lanes at Gates 3, 6, 29 and 34. Parking in the A, B and C ramps runs 12 to 14 dollars, and the 4th Street North lot costs six.

Ballpark Ratings scores the park 91 out of 100 and ranks it fourth of the 30 major league venues, calling it the most authentic urban park built in more than a decade and praising the skyline views through Target Plaza. The same review is not uncritical: seats are 18 to 19 inches wide and tight, the upper deck sits further from the field than in some newer parks, seven video boards crowd the sightlines, and first-base-side fans look out at a wall of seating rather than the city. Where it earns near-universal praise is the food. Kramarczuk's bratwurst and sausages are sold at sections 101, 112 and 312, Hot Indian curry chicken at 120, Pizza Luce at 234 and Murray's steak sandwiches elsewhere, with walleye and pork chops on the regional menu. Budget stands near sections 120, 133 and 311 sell hot dogs at 3.99 dollars and soft pretzels at 4.49. New for 2026 is a chocolate fish on a stick.

The rituals are small and local. Organist Sue Nelson plays at the Twins Pub behind home plate. The Minnie and Paul sign in centre field, two ballplayers shaking hands across the Mississippi, lights up on a Twins home run. The left-field bleachers, sections 128 to 131, are the loudest part of the house and the best place to catch one. Upper-deck seats in sections 210 to 319 cost around 20 to 40 dollars, and the club also sells standing-room entry through the Twins Pass. Attendance has been the club's sore point since the 2025 sell-off, and the 2026 campaign has been played to crowds that the club has worked hard to rebuild. The park itself remains the reason to go.