The Minnesota Twins hold a secure lead in the AL Central with a month remaining in the 2023 season. They’re in a good place with only 27 games to go. FanGraphs has Minnesota’s odds of winning the Central at 94.4% entering play on Friday.
Despite being in position to make the playoffs, even though they’re only a few games above .500, many Twins fans will recall that the team was also in contention at this time last year. However, they completely fell apart due to injuries and bullpen collapses.
Last season, the Twins had a better record by win percentage at the beginning of September. However, they were only a game back of the Guardians. Is there reason to believe that history won’t repeat itself and the Twins will hang on to their division lead? Let’s compare the 2022 and 2023 Twins at this point in the season and find out.
One of the most obvious improvements for the 2023 Twins has been the depth of their starting pitching. Minnesota has gotten a lot more out of their starters this year thanks to a staff that has gone significantly deeper into games. In 2022, the Twins were 25th in the league in innings pitched per games started (IP/GS) with 4.8. This year, they are second in baseball with a 5.6 IP/GS. That’s nearly a full inning of improvement, and this should bode well for Minnesota as they head into the season’s final month – and the postseason.
This year, the Twins also have the benefit of multiple major players returning from injury soon, rather than them losing steam in the final weeks due to injury. Minnesota should soon see Byron Buxton, Alex Kirilloff, and Willi Castro return, providing a significant boost to the lineup. There have also been some rumblings that Chris Paddack, who has not pitched in 2023, will be returning this month to give a boost to a starting rotation that has already been strong for most of the year.
During multiple broadcasts last week, Dick Bremer and Roy Smalley commented that they felt as if the Twins are “ascending” compared to last year because Minnesota is adding talent to their roster instead of losing it. It’s easy to see the team getting stronger down the stretch and being set up well for the postseason push.
In theory, Minnesota’s easy schedule should help them in September. The Twins have the fifth-easiest remaining schedule in the league. Only nine of their remaining 28 games are against teams that are currently above .500. On the other hand, the Cleveland Guardians have 18 of their 28 remaining contests against teams that have a winning record.
Minnesota and Cleveland only play each other three more times this year. Those three games could go a long way in deciding how this race plays out. However, the Twins have a clear advantage right now in their path to the finish line. So long as they are able to take care of business, they should be playing in the postseason.
It might sound strange to suggest that despite having a worse record than a season ago at this time, the Twins are an objectively better team. However, I truly believe that is the case. Even though they have had more than their fair share of disappointing losses this season, they have also shown a tremendous ability to come back from big deficits lately, which is something that last year’s team did not have.
By adding reinforcements to their lineup and potentially their pitching staff, the Twins should make the roster a lot stronger. And as long as they beat the teams they should beat in the next few weeks, Minnesota should have no trouble hanging onto a division lead instead of having it slip away from them like last year.
