Joe Ryan might be the only player in the Minnesota Twins dugout who’s upset when the Twins are giving up home runs. “I don’t want to be getting super excited when we’re scoring runs because my job is to hate scoring runs,” he said after a 3-1 loss to the Cleveland Guardians on April 6. “I’m kind of like probably the most negative person when we’re scoring in the dugout.”
Fortunately for run-haters, the Twins aren’t scoring with runners in scoring position early this season. Carlos Correa (3-for-7) and Byron Buxton (3-for-9) have three hits with runners in scoring position, but the rest of the team was 3-for-46 (.065) entering the Los Angeles Dodgers series.
“It’s early in the year, so I think we can use that excuse for a little bit right now,” said Ryan. “At the same time, yeah, we’ve got to put the ball in play a little bit more. But that’s the hitters’ job, and I try not to really pick up the vibes in the dugout during my outings.”
As much as Minnesota’s pitchers are wired to hate run-scoring, they probably would like a little more run support. Aside from Bailey Ober’s eight-run outing in Kansas City, the Twins rotation has given up three runs or less in every game before Monday’s game against the Los Angeles Dodgers. However, Minnesota started the season 3-5 because they can’t score runners.
“It’s frustrating,” said Rocco Baldelli. “We’ve only had a couple of swings with runners in scoring position. We have guys out there all day long. It’s not going to last forever, we know that, but all of these games matter, and the sooner we figure this out, the better because we’ve had guys on base virtually every game.
Baldelli’s core frustration is that the Twins have a defined plan for attacking pitchers, but players aren’t delivering on it.
“Numerous opportunities and we pride ourselves on having a good plan with everything we do – literally, everything we do,” he said. “And I think when we get some guys out there, we’re probably pressing a little bit and getting astray from what we want to do. We need to be clear on what that plan is for ourselves and then bring it into the game. I don’t think we’re doing that right now, quite yet.”
The pertinent question is whether Minnesota’s hitters collectively misunderstand the game plan or aren’t executing at the plate.
“I mean, you have to do both,” said Baldelli. “Free-swinging with guys in scoring position, generally not the way to go. Again, you may run into one over the course of the game and get a big swing. But it’s gonna be a lot of rougher at-bats when you’re going out there like that.
“And I think you can’t let the frustration get to you as a group.”
Correa echoed that the Twins cannot panic this early in the season. But he also doesn’t want the lineup to regret not figuring things out sooner.
“It just gets magnified when it’s happening day after day,” he said. “It’s tough to be in that spot as a team. There’s some games out there you feel like you should have won. There’s a lot of work to do on our end when it comes to approach as a collective group. We’ve just got to figure out sooner or later. We don’t want to be here half a season trying to figure out when we know we’re capable of doing it a lot earlier.”
The Twins aren’t going to fundamentally overhaul their game plan this early in the year. They’ve had hitters’ meetings and worked with individual players, but they want to take pitches around the fringes of the strike zone and force pitchers to give them something to hit.
“We are gonna walk a lot,” said Baldelli. “I will say that. I can probably take it in a different direction. Our team should walk a good amount this year as a group. That’s the type of group that we have.
“We’re gonna take a lot of pitches that are close and pitches that are just out of the zone. I think we’re gonna take more of them than maybe most teams. You want a good, firm strike zone that you can work with, and take those close pitches and know what you’re gonna get.”
Minnesota isn’t going to change its identity after a slow start. They haven’t played ten games yet, and forcing pitchers to throw them strikes should result in walks and hard contact. But the hitters need to understand the game plan and execute sooner rather than later. Because the Twins have already lost some games they could win, they don’t want to regret getting off to a slow start this season.
