Despite a 13-game winning streak at one point early on this season, the Minnesota Twins have certainly underachieved through the first half of the season.

The team has battled injuries and offensive inconsistency thus far, and hold a 47-49 record which is good enough for 2nd place in the AL Central.

ESPN.com has its second half preview story out, and the Minnesota Twins as expected are far down the pecking order of contenders.

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In fact, they are in Tier 4, dubbed “playing their way out of contention.”

Here’s a look at the write up on Minnesota:

Record: 47-49 | Projected final record: 81-81

Division title odds: 0.9% | Playoff odds: 17.0% | Championship odds: 0.4%

 

Biggest hurdle keeping them from contending: The offense is averaging just 4.19 runs per game, a significant drop from last season’s 4.58 and way down from the 4.80 the Twins averaged in 2023 when they won the AL Central. It’s the lowest output for the Twins since 2013, and two of the major culprits are supposed to be two of their best players: Carlos Correa and Royce Lewis. Correa has been healthy, but is posting career lows in OBP, slugging and OPS. Lewis has once again battled injuries, but even when he has played, he has hit just .216/.281/.302 with two home runs in 42 games.

 

What to expect from here: Amazingly, the Twins had a 13-game winning streak in May and still entered the All-Star break with a losing record, which shows how poorly they played aside from that stretch. The Twins haven’t played well on the road, going 19-29, and 12 of their first 18 games coming out of the break will be on the road, including series against the Dodgers and Tigers. Those 18 games will tell us whether the Twins can get closer in the wild-card race. If they do find a way to reach the postseason, they could be a sleeper with one of the best bullpens in the majors, but right now it feels like they lack the consistency to get there. — Schoenfield

If you’re in the positivity business, one can only look at the soon-to-be returns of Pablo Lopez and Zebby Matthews to the pitching staff, and the fact that the offense would be hard pressed to be worse than it was in the first half.

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Minnesota takes on Colorado and then the LA Dodgers in a pair of three-game road series out of the break.

Here’s a quick look at some of the tiers and rankings in the article:

Tier 1: The Big Six – Detroit, LA Dodgers, Chi Cubs, Houston, Philly, and NY Mets

Tier 2: Established Contenders – NY Yankees, Milwaukee, and Toronto

Tier 3: Firmly in the Mix – Seattle, Boston, Tampa, San Diego, San Fran, and St. Louis

Tier 4: Playing Their Way Out of Contention: – Texas, Minnesota, Cincy, Arizona, KC, Cleveland, and LA Angels

To check out the entire article, click here.

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Source: ESPN.com

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