The Twins entered Thursday’s off day on a four-game skid, having lost eight of their past 10.

With just 29 games to go before the postseason, and three teams in the hunt for the American League Central title, the final month of the regular season should provide plenty of intrigue.

Here are five questions as the Twins near a pivotal September:

What contributors will the Twins get back?

When the Twins shifted Joe Ryan to the 60-day injured list on Tuesday, it signaled the end of the regular season for the starting pitcher, ineligible to return before the season ends on Sept. 29. But there are other players the Twins expect to return in the coming month, players they hope can help them both in their push for a playoff spot and in the postseason itself.

The main two are stars Carlos Correa and Byron Buxton, both of whom have been out longer than expected. Correa has yet to play in a game during the second half of this season, dealing with plantar fasciitis, and Buxton is experiencing hip inflammation.

Both have been running, though there’s no timetable for their return and neither has been sent out on a rehab assignment yet. Buxton is expected to be back sooner than Correa, who expressed hope a few days ago that he could return in the regular season.

Also out: Brooks Lee, currently on a rehab assignment at Triple-A St. Paul; Alex Kirilloff, recently pulled off of his rehab assignment because of a flare-up in his back; relievers Kody Funderburk and Justin Topa; and starting pitcher Chris Paddack.

Will the rookie starters step up?

Injuries to Ryan and Paddack have thrust a pair of rookie pitchers, David Festa and Zebby Matthews, into the spotlight. They join a rotation that also includes Simeon Woods Richardson, himself a rookie but one who has been with the major league club for most of this season.

The Twins should get a good look at Festa, their top pitching prospect, and Matthews, a quick riser through the system who began this season at Class A Advanced Cedar Rapids, over the final month of the season.

In three starts thus far, Matthews has given up five earned runs in 15 innings. In his last start, he pitched particularly well. Festa has started nine games with mixed results thus far, but looked good on Wednesday, when he gave up just two runs in six innings and struck out seven against the Atlanta Braves. Woods Richardson, meanwhile, has been a revelation throughout the season, stepping in after Louie Varland faltered in April.

All three will pitch important innings, and the Twins will need them to step up in their quest for a playoff berth.

What will the bullpen look like?

Will Topa and Funderburk return? Could Paddack return in a bullpen role, as he did last year? And will the Twins convert Varland into a reliever for the end of the season?

Topa hasn’t pitched an inning this season because of knee tendinitis. His return has been slowed by an arm issue, but he is in the middle of ramping up his catch play. Funderburk is progressing from an oblique strain that has held him out since mid-July.

Paddack, who has been on the injured list with a forearm strain since July, does not have time to ramp back up as a starter, and it’s possible that he doesn’t have enough time to return this regular season even as a reliever. But returning out of the bullpen in the playoffs might be a possibility.

Last year, both Paddack, who missed most of the season rehabbing from Tommy John surgery, and Varland emerged as weapons out of the bullpen. Varland made his first minor league appearance out of the bullpen on Wednesday, throwing five scoreless innings, but with so many starters injured, the Twins also might want to keep him stretched out for the time being as rotation depth.

How will the division race shake out?

The Twins are currently 3½ games behind the Cleveland Guardians and 2½ games games behind the Kansas City Royals, sitting in third place in the American League Central.

It seems likely that all three teams will make the playoffs and as the teams head into the final month of the season, the division is up for grabs. The division winner is likely to have a first-round playoff bye seeing as the Houston Astros, the American League West leaders, have a worse record, making winning the division even more valuable.

Since Rocco Baldelli became the Twins’ manager in 2019, they have won the AL Central three times, including last season, when they ended an 18-game postseason losing streak by beating Toronto in the wild-card series. So, this isn’t new to the players, and the Twins control some of their fate.

They play three games with Kansas City and four against Cleveland — all on the road — and also have the easiest schedule remaining of those three teams, followed by the Guardians and then the Royals. The two teams who do not win the division are likely to nab wild-card berths. The Twins currently hold the third and final spot.

Which version of the Twins will show up?

The 2024 season has been marked in many ways by streakiness and inconsistent play. There was the 7-13 start to the season. There was a 12-game winning streak. Smaller winning and losing streaks have followed.

The Twins settled in during the middle of the season, taking two of three consistently, but they’re now in another slump. It’s a tough stretch that has seen the bullpen blow up a couple of times late in games, and they’re trying to navigate out of it without some of their best players.

Will the Twins pull themselves out of this? Who will step up and emerge to help them do it?

“Listen, we can do it,” Baldelli said. “I’ve seen it. I’ve seen this group do it. I’ve seen us do it without all of our best players on the field. … And so we have to do it again. We have to dig down deep and muster it up and do it again.”

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