Twins

When Will the Twins Stop Playing Whac-A-Mole With Their Problems?

Photo Credit: Matt Krohn-USA TODAY Sports

In their series opener with the Los Angeles Dodgers two weeks ago, the Minnesota Twins trailed 5-2 entering the 7th inning. The offense then scored five runs in the late innings to send the game to extras, only for the Dodgers to win anyway on a bases-loaded walk in the 12th. In most cases, a team scoring eight runs is enough to win a game. But Minnesota’s bullpen was unable to hold Los Angeles off the scoreboard in extra innings, which was partially due to poor umpiring. Unfortunately, it has been something of a trend for the Twins recently. They have had games where the offense has done their part, but the bullpen blows the game late. There have also been a few games where the pitching has been solid, but the offense sputters.

Minnesota’s recent struggles are much like a game of Whac-A-Mole. When it seems like they finally have a problem figured out, another one pops up. Then, when they solve that problem, the other one pops back up again. That’s a huge reason why the Twins were 3-6 during their stretch against the Dodgers, Los Angeles Angels, and San Francisco Giants. To figure out why they have been so inconsistent, let’s take a look at whether Minnesota’s problems have been due to their own decision making or just poor luck and circumstance.

The bullpen has been a significant culprit in Minnesota’s losses in each of the last three series. Of the six losses, the Twins have had a lead in the 7th inning or later in four of them. Jorge López has absorbed two of those losses, and he has been Minnesota’s second-best reliever behind only Jhoan Durán. López had a 1.37 ERA before the Anaheim series. But with the Twins clinging to a 3-2 lead in the 7th in the second game of the Giants series, López allowed a go-ahead home run to Michael Conforto, just the second homer he has allowed all season.

Emilio Pagán is another reliever who has had a rough outing recently despite being decent for most of the season. Aside from his implosion in Boston, he’d been reliable in low-leverage situations. Pagán’s meltdown came during the 7th inning in the series finale with the Dodgers. Before Pagán came into the game, José De León started the inning with two strikeouts, each of them on three pitches. De León looked like he was on his way to an immaculate inning before allowing a pair of two-out hits. Pagán entered the game only needing to get one more out to wrap up the inning. Instead, he allowed a pair of walks and a grand slam as part of a five-run inning.

But Pagán had only issued four walks all year before that and had not given up a home run. Even solid relief pitchers have poor outings every once in a while. Therefore, it may just be that López and Pagán had rough outings at a bad time. The Twins have not found a better low-leverage reliever to use than Pagán this season, and López has overall been a positive acquisition for the bullpen despite his recent rough patch. It is also worth noting that the only reason that the Twins had to use Pagán in a high-leverage situation was that they had relievers unavailable from the 12-inning marathon in the series opener. If they were able to use someone like Brock Stewart in that scenario, perhaps they would have gotten out of the inning unscathed.

However, Minnesota’s issues are a bit more self-inflicted on the hitting side of things. The best example of this over the last two weeks happened in the series opener against the Giants. They jumped on Bailey Ober for four runs in the first inning. After that point, Ober settled down, and he and the bullpen didn’t allow any more runs. The offense was unable to do their part, though. Minnesota’s only run came on a solo homer from Kyle Garlick in the 8th inning.

Despite the pitching doing its job, Minnesota was unable to get the bats going at all, the inverse of the issue they faced against both LA teams.  A big part of the offensive struggles that the Twins have dealt with is due to strikeouts. The Twins have the worst K% in baseball, at 26.1%. They also have had to deal with a lot of injuries to left handed hitters, which has hurt the roster depth considerably.

Are Minnesota’s issues due to poor management or just a stretch of bad luck? A little bit of both. The bullpen has run into some trouble hanging onto leads mostly because of bad luck, and when the offense has been unable to score, it has largely been self-inflicted. Examples of both happening came in the opener and finale of the Angels series, where the offense was held silent for long stretches by the opposing starter, and the bullpen collapsed late. If the Twins are going to turn things back around, they will have to get back to the complete performances they have shown they are capable of.

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