The Twins are roughly 20% done with their season, and have little to show for it, other than a laundry list of injuries and a record against the AL East that would make the Timberwolves proud. If you were expecting some great analysis of the Twins, you’ve come to the wrong place. And as far as optimism goes, I trail Brent and Nathan in that category, too. With that said, here is my rundown on the state of the Twins to this point: Ugly. In fact, it’s been as ugly as a long touchdown pass through the hands of Troy Williamson. (Apologies for the Vikings reference).
Now, it’s time for some sobering statistics. For those with queasy baseball stomachs, look away.
Let’s start with the pitching, only because of lack of interest from the Twins’ bats and gloves. Going into Tuesday night’s game with Detroit, the team ERA is 4.62. That’s good for 28th in baseball. That’s not good, but when you compare the team’s .230 batting average (tied for 27th in baseball), I’d take the pitching by a small margin, only because there have been good stretches of pitching and no good stretches of hitting. Now, consider:
• The Twins starting pitchers have 16 quality starts in 33 attempts. (By definition, a quality start is where a starting pitcher pitches at least 6 inning while giving up a maximum of 3 earned runs.) Compare that to 24 quality starts for the opponents. Now, normally I would say that quality starts don’t mean anything, but look at this next stat and tell me that they are not extremely important for the Twins.
• The Twins are 2 – 15 in games when the starting pitcher did not qualify for a quality start. Opponents are 4 – 5 when their starter doesn’t pitch well enough to earn a quality start. This tells me that the Twins aren’t good at putting teams away when they get to the starter and on the flip side, they are terrible when their starter struggles.
• The two Twins pitchers at the top of the rotation have been just awful. Pavano and Liriano have combined for 55 earned runs in 74 2/3 innings for an ERA of 6.63. And that includes Liriano’s no-hitter!
The bottom line for the pitchers is this: they have a very thin margin for error the way the bats and the gloves are producing this year (or aren’t producing this year). On a positive note, Baker, Duensing, and even Blackburn (most of the time) have been very good. You could make the argument that either Baker or Duensing has been the best player on the team thus far. I also have to give Liriano his due, I was very excited to see him battle through 9 innings against the White Sox and actually complete a game. I was more excited that he completed the game than actually pitching the no-hitter. To me, it seems like his attitude changed to the point where he wasn’t just content pitching 5 or 6 innings. I think that is a big step.
Okay, the pitching has not been great, but, unfortunately there are worse problems. The fielding leaves a lot to be desired. I don’t have a lot of stats to throw at you about the fielding, but most of what I don’t like about the fielding is related to throws to first base by the infielders. It seems like every game there is a double play or even a routine play that does not get made because the throw to first pulled the first baseman off the bag, the throw bounced to first, or there wasn’t even a throw. This is not Twins baseball. They are giving away too many outs and right now, they can’t afford to give away a single play the way things are going. Here’s one stat for you: in 3 out of the 33 games the Twins have played in this year, they have committed more errors than they have scored runs. Now, on the bright side, the occurrences of outfield assists have been a pleasant surprise.
The grimmest report of them all, however, is the lack of hitting. Things are not good right now in the batter’s box. If there is one thing the hitters have mastered, it is the pop-up. They will use that particular outcome anytime, anyplace, it doesn’t matter: 3-1 count – pop-up, runners in scoring position and one out – pop-up, day game – pop-up. It’s driving me crazy. Whatever happened to the trusty old ground-into-double play?
• The Twins have played 33 games this year and have managed a meager 14 home runs. To make matters worse, they’ve scored a whopping 16 runs on those home runs! That’s right, 12 solo shots and 2 two-run shots. (Grrrrrr!)
• Only 12 times has their team batting average for the game been greater than .250. (Again, grrrrrr!)
• 11 times the Twins have had team batting averages less than .200. (More grinding of the jaw!)
• They’ve recorded 10 or more hits only 9 times. (Did I mention the thing with the pop-ups?)
• They’ve scored more than 5 runs in a game twice. Twice! That’s 2 times! (Thank you, Boston and Cleveland, for each taking a game off this spring.)
Alright, Jason Kubel is playing like his career is depending on it, but unlike other sports (a goaltender in hockey, for instance), one player cannot consistently win games alone.
There’s a lot of talk about injuries playing a part of this ridiculous start, and yes, injuries have made things worse than they should be right now. My problem with the Twins is that they are not playing fundamentally sound baseball right now: not making the plays in the field, not moving runners over, walking opposing hitters…… The list goes on and on..… In previous years, when injuries occurred, the fundamental baseball continued. This year it seems the whole team is in a funk – it doesn’t matter who is playing.
I don’t know what the answer is for the Twins right now, but they seriously can’t play much worse. I like the fact that the young guys (Hughes, Plouffe, Revere, and Tosoni) are getting a chance to play. Hopefully their experience this spring will help them out down the road. All I am banking on right now is that the injuries subside and the veterans start playing like they should. If not, it is going to be a long, frustrating summer.
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