Tuesday marks one full week since the Minnesota Twins beat Clayton Kershaw and the Dodgers, prompting Byron Buxton to warn the baseball world that the Twins’ lineup is “nasty” and “dangerous.”
“It just shows how different we are — our mentality and who we are becoming as a team,” Buxton said, according to the Star Tribune. “We didn’t go out there today like, ‘Oh, Kershaw’s pitching.’ It was like, ‘They’re facing the Twins. … You’ve got to pitch to us. We nasty. We dangerous.’ And once we get it clicking, it’s going to be way worse.”
It’s worse alright. Since that 5-1 victory in L.A., the Twins have lost four of five and averaged 3.2 runs per game.
Over the last seven days the Twins as a team are slashing .222/.312/.377 with 16 runs. Only the Padres (13 runs), Royals (12), Brewers (12) and Athletics (8) have been more putrid in the last week.
Nasty? No. Dangerous? To fans’ health, maybe.
Twins batters have struck out 63 times in the last five games. Only the Angels (65) have struck out more in the past week of MLB action, though they’ve played one more game so the Twins are striking out more times per game since Buxton’s “nasty” comment than any team in the majors.
When the Twins actually put the ball in play they are batting .316 in the past seven days, which is actually seventh best in the big leagues. But an average of 12.6 strikeouts per game means they’re not putting the ball in play very often, which is why their team batting average in the last week is .222.
In other words, the Twins have been Henry Blanco at the plate. Blanco hit .223 in his 19-year career that included a stop with the Twins in 2004.
No team has struck out more times than the Twins (474) this season. The last week has been a laughing stock with 63 strikeouts in 167 at-bats. That’s a 37.7% strikeout rate. Woof.
Even Minnesota’s runs-scored stat is a mirage. For the season, the Twins are averaging 4.58 runs per game. That looks solid and actually ranks 11th in the big leagues, but it’s inflated significantly thanks to last week’s three-game surge when they scored 35 runs against the Cubs and Dodgers.
Take away those three games and the Twins have averaged 4.1 runs per game in the other 45 games this season. Averaging 4.1 runs pushes Minnesota all the way down to 24th place in a tie with the lowly Washington Nationals.
Buxton might be proved right by the end of the season, but a three-game burst is an outlier in what has otherwise been a nasty experience watching the Twins hit in 2023.
