The Twins finally lost on Sunday, for the first time since May 2 in Boston. Four of the five runs they allowed were let in by starter Zebby Matthews, though, so the team still boasts a 0.89 reliever ERA since May 3. That fortnight and change, in which they’ve gone 13-1, has been characterized by lots of timely hits and great work from their starting pitchers. Their defense has made big plays, too. Were it not for the most dominant relief work in the league, though, they wouldn’t have been able to make this charge.
Beginning on that Saturday at Fenway Park (admittedly, a selective endpoint, but I’m being so balanced as to include the loss Sunday in this set), the Twins have a 29.7% strikeout rate and a 5.1% walk rate in 50 1/3 innings. They’ve gotten 151 outs and allowed just six runs. Only the similarly torrid Cardinals have come anywhere close to matching their run prevention, and St. Louis has done it by getting lucky. The Twins, by contrast, are pitching like a well-oiled reliever machine—because that’s what they were built to be.
Fans can and should feel righteous indignation when the team neglects to make proactive moves to upgrade its lineup, as they’ve done over the last three years. They’re pinning heavy hopes on light bats, and then evincing unearned dismay at the underwhelming results. They also could have done more to bolster their starting rotation this winter, even while holding onto their superb collection of young arms. You can never have too many good starters, and you can hardly ever have enough of them. The Twins have stopped short of gathering as much top-tier talent as they should have, be that via free agency (an ownership problem) or trade (a front-office problem), and the ramifications are real. Those failures are why this team finished last year 12-27 and started this one 7-15.
If we levy fair criticisms, though, we also have to dispense justice by according earned praise. This team is incredibly good at developing and sustaining the success of relief pitchers. Sometimes, in our rush to explain and grasp the high degree of variation in relief pitching and the rarity of players having long, consistent careers in those roles, we minimize or misstate the difficulty and the value of creating great bullpens. The Twins have done just that, and it’s not a small thing.
You know about Jhoan Duran, who’s changed a great deal as a pitcher but is still generating familiarly excellent results. You know about Griffin Jax, who has buzzard luck but buzzsaw stuff. This year, the key addition to the mix has been Louis Varland, who’s no longer fighting his destiny and has emerged as an immediate partner to the other two relief aces in the pen. Without a strong second line, though, the Twins wouldn’t be able to maximize the value of their top arms. That’s where Cole Sands comes in.
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