We’re only a couple weeks into the season, but things have already become downright embarrassing. They were swept by the Royals and then tonight they were crushed by the Mets. If you are like me, the immediate reaction is that the team is tremendously unlucky. Sure, they aren’t very good this year, but nobody is “swept by the Royals than get blown out by the Mets” bad without a little bit of misfortune.
The thing that really dogged the Twins in their series in Kansas City was their offense. They only managed to score 5 runs over three games. In truth, their offense has been less than stellar this season. Of course, the offense was the one thing hat was supposed to work this year, right? It has been a short enough season that they are being influenced heavily by bad luck, right?
Well, their batting average is .227. That’s pretty awful. They haven’t hit many over the fence yet, with only 6 dingers and one of them coming from Eduardo Escobar (seriously, Escobar is one of the only guys to have homered this year for the Twins.) Still, a batting average that low has to be driven, in part, by the fact that they are unlucky? Oh, no. That’s not the case. Their team BABIP is .293, which is only barely shy of the league average. A bigger issue is that they keep striking out. 5th most in the league. That’s bad.
Something that has really ground the gears of most Minnesotans is their inability to hit with runners in scoring position. There were dozens stranded on the basepaths last week. Surely, their lack of execution with runners in scoring postion — wait. No. They actually hit better with runners in scoring position. Not well, but better. In fact, they are right around league average.
What’s the point? Their offense this season has been bad. Not unlucky. Bad. That’s disconcerting.
You want some bit of good news? Some area that says the Twins are outperforming their numbers? How about this? Vance Worley, he who horked up a 63.00 ERA today by giving up 7 runs in 1 inning and change of work and has a 10.50 ERA for the season hasn’t allowed a home run! As a result, he has 3.13 FIP! That’s really good! It’s something to hang on to (Even if the size of the sample is so small as to render the information nearly useless). For now, anyways.
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