Baseball is all about one thing: coming home.
While the Minnesota Twins enjoyed a mostly successful and encouraging six-game road trip to begin the season, they had to have had their home opener circled on the calendar. Of course, part of that excitement came from the prospect of finally seeing loyal fans cheering them on at Target Field last Thursday. But even more so, they knew about their dominance at home.
Over the last two seasons, the Twins were 70-42 at home, good for a .625 winning percentage. That ranked fourth in the American League, trailing only the Houston Astros (80-29, .734), New York Yankees (79-33, .705), and Oakland Athletics (74-39, .655). The Twins’ home success in 2019 and 2020 was supported by two key factors: sound game management from manager Rocco Baldelli and lockdown performances from high-leverage relievers.
So why didn’t that dominance carry over to their first home series of the season against the Seattle Mariners?
Rocco’s Modern Life (and game management)
When the Twins hired Baldelli, his reputation suggested that he would bring a forward-thinking brand of team management. He had spent the previous seven seasons in various coaching roles with the Tampa Bay Rays, one of the most progressive organizations in a game that values tradition like no other.
Under Rays manager Kevin Cash’s tutelage, Baldelli developed in-game defensive blueprints as the team’s major league field coordinator. He also got to familiarize himself with Cash’s decision-making process when managing a pitching staff.
Two pillars of Cash’s managing style have followed Baldelli to Minneapolis.
First, Baldelli continued to expand on his development of a defensive strategy, as made evident by the fact that the Twins have implemented a defensive shift in 54% of at-bats since Baldelli took over in 2019, second only to the Los Angeles Dodgers (60.9%, according to Inside Edge).
Also, Baldelli has shown the same hesitancy in keeping his starting pitcher in the game past the sixth inning. Fans will remember Cash’s controversial decision to take staff ace Blake Snell out of Game 6 of last year’s World Series with a one-run lead and just one out in the sixth inning. Nevertheless, Baldelli’s track record of removing his starting pitcher to avoid facing batters for the third time resembles that of his former boss.
Take a look at how rare it has been for Twins starters to make it late into games before getting the hook from Baldelli:
Completed 7 innings since 2019
- José Berríos – 11 times out of 46 games started
- Michael Pineda – 4 times out of 33 games started
- Jake Odorizzi – 2 times out of 34 games started
- Kenta Maeda – 2 times out of 13 games started since joining the Twins in 2020
And yet, in Sunday’s 8-6 loss to the Mariners, Baldelli decided to go off script and keep Matt Shoemaker in the game as he approached the meaty part of the lineup for the third time.
Seattle even gave him a warning shot in the form of a Kyle Seager home run to lead off the inning. But Baldelli persisted, keeping his starter in even when the numbers begged for a call to the bullpen. Seager’s bomb was followed by a Jose Marmolejos double, a Luis Torrens single, and a go-ahead Taylor Trammell home run, chasing Shoemaker.
Is it inevitable that a reliever would have shut down the Mariners and escaped the inning with a lead still intact? Of course not. However, it’s hard to find justification for Baldelli’s decision to deviate from a strategy of pulling the starter proactively that has proven to be highly successful over the previous two seasons.
What a relief…
The Twins also showed how crucial it is for a contending team to have multiple options in a lockdown bullpen last year. Given that their bullpen had the fourth-best ERA at home (2.84, league average is 4.36), their strategy proved to be rather effective.
Baldelli’s most-trusted weapons in the bullpen led the way by executing in high-leverage situations (taking into account inning, score, outs, and runners on base).
From 2019-20, Twins relievers had the second-best ERA in high-leverage spots at home, trailing only the Oakland A’s (2.78 to 0.44, respectively). To put it simply, the bullpen was very successful with limiting damage in situations where leads are the most vulnerable. Some key contributors in this regard last year included Taylor Rogers (2.70 ERA in 14 high-leverage situations at home), Tyler Duffey (0.00 ERA, nine), and Jorge Alcala (0.00 ERA, eight). Notice these are all relievers that Baldelli trusted to close out many of their home wins down the stretch last season.
That’s why Tuesday’s 4-2 loss to the Boston Red Sox left many baffled. With the game tied at 2-2, Randy Dobnak took the mound in relief and pitched very effectively until giving up a leadoff double to Christian Arroyo in the top of the eighth. Instead of going to one of his well-rested, high-leverage relievers with the go-ahead run at second and nobody out, Baldelli stuck with Dobnak. Five pitches later, Bobby Dalbec drove in Boston’s third run with a scorched double down the right field line.
Frustrations over that loss were amplified due to recency bias. After all, fans were still recovering from the bullpen’s hiccups in Sunday’s 4-3 loss to the Mariners when Alexander Colomé surrendered three earned runs on four hits while only managing to get one out. He coughed up a two-run lead in a spot where Twins fans have grown so accustomed to seeing their club succeed. That’s bound to stir up some bitterness, especially paired with another bullpen implosion in the very next game. After all, expectations remain high for this bullpen and rightfully so given their reputation from the last two seasons.
Maybe there’s something in the water at Target Field. It could be the fact that players get better rest in their own houses (or even in the team’s designated nap room). But the underlying numbers from the last two years provide a clear blueprint for how to win at home. The Twins were led by sound decisions from Baldelli and his staff and some elite-level pitching from key contributors in the bullpen. While three losses in the first four home games hardly indicate what to expect going forward, their shortcomings against the Mariners and Red Sox certainly felt far from home.
