Hello readers! My name is Jacob Wandersee and this is a new column called Land of 10,000 Takes. The idea is to have a section where we can briefly discuss the status of Minnesota Sports each week. There will be statistics, observations, opinions, and hopefully contributions! Feel free to send me an email at jwandersee@heraldjournal.com any time during the week if you have a topic, opinion, observation, or snide remark for me. I will work to integrate them into the column each week.
Let’s kick things off by taking a look at the rough start for your Minnesota Twins.
The season started mostly how the Twins had hoped. They brought back nearly everyone from a team that made an unexpected run to the playoffs last season. They were even able to sign veterans like Logan Morrison, Fernando Rodney, Lance Lynn and Jake Odorizzi – signings that the Twins typically do not make. They were 8-5 coming off a thrilling 2-1 win in 16 innings against the Indians in Puerto Rico and everything seemed to be going as planned.
Since that game (as of Wednesday May 2nd), the Twins have lost 11 of 13 games and are 10-16 on the season.
In this 13 game stretch, the Twins are averaging giving up 7.7 RUNS PER GAME. It doesn’t take a baseball expert to understand how embarrassing that number is. For the season, the Twins are 29th in the league in Earned Run Average at 5.34. To add insult to injury, the Reds are last in the league with an ERA of 5.37, but that didn’t stop them from taking 2 of 3 at Target Field this past weekend.
There is plenty of blame to go around when it comes to this gaudy ERA. You could blame Fernando Rodney, his 3 blown saves, and his 4.66 ERA. Or you could blame our entire bullpen, where virtually all of our arms have an ERA of over 5. The starters have been inconsistent at best, and if Kyle Gibson has the best ERA of your starting staff, things probably aren’t going how you had hoped.
Unfortunately, pitching isn’t the only problem. The Twins rank 28th in runs scored this season. Eduardo Escobar, Joe Mauer, and even Max Kepler have been bright spots, but the rest of the lineup has been suspect. Miguel Sano, who is now on the 10 Day DL with a hamstring strain, is batting .213 with 36 strike outs, which is good for bottom 10 in the league. Byron Buxton is batting .195 and now has to deal with a hairline fracture in his left big toe. Morrison is batting a staggering .157 and looks completely lost in almost every at bat.
If you want to look at it optimistically, you could say that it is a long season and that there is plenty of ball left to be played… If you look at it realistically, I am afraid there is a lot of ball left to be played and this could be a rough summer.