{"id":25476,"date":"2025-05-14T05:23:12","date_gmt":"2025-05-14T05:23:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/25476\/"},"modified":"2025-05-14T05:23:12","modified_gmt":"2025-05-14T05:23:12","slug":"the-minnesota-twins-are-fun-again-where-things-stand-at-the-one-quarter-mark-twins","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/25476\/","title":{"rendered":"The Minnesota Twins Are Fun Again: Where Things Stand at the One-Quarter Mark – Twins"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tComing into the 2025 season, the Twins were the odds-on favorite to win the division. Since then… Look, it\u2019s been a weird start to the season. Remember just a couple of weeks ago, when it appeared the season was all but over for the good guys? On April 27, yours truly wrote a piece<\/a> detailing how statistically unlikely it would be for the Twins to make the playoffs. Well, it appears I may have been hasty, historical precedents aside. Since then, the Twins have reversed their fortunes. Winning eight games in a row will do that, as will nearly an entire pitching staff showing dominance, and hitters remembering how to hit. In fact, according to FanGraphs, the Twins now have a 49.6% chance to make the postseason, and are (almost) right back to where they started.\n<\/p>\n

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\n\tFor those of you who have tuned out at home due to frustrations with ownership or early-season travails, now just might be a good time to tune back in. There\u2019s some fun baseball happening on a nearly nightly basis. Dating back 30 days to April 13, the Twins have gone on a 14-2 run at home. Generally, they look like a fairly complete team once again, capable of being relevant in September\u2014and maybe beyond.\n<\/p>\n

\n\tEvery team will go through rough patches and others that drive fan elation. The Twins are no exception. They aren\u2019t as good as they have looked over their last couple weeks, and they are almost certainly better than they looked for the first couple weeks of the season (or during their September swoon last season). You know what, though? They are proving worth watching on a nightly basis. Baseball is a game of averages, adjustments, and more than a fair bit of luck.\u00a0Anything is possible, and the fun is in the journey.\n<\/p>\n

\n\tCan the positive trend of the past few weeks continue, and what should fans expect the rest of the way? Let\u2019s look at a few positives that can inform the future.\n<\/p>\n

\n\tExpected Wins and Losses
Despite an impressive stretch of play, relative to teams projected to make the playoffs headed into the season, the Twins have struggled to gain ground. Unfortunately, the other three AL Central teams who are trying to win have all gone on torrid runs of their own. Over the past 10 games, despite going 8-2, the Twins kept pace with the Royals, gained just a single game over the Tigers, and picked up two over the Guardians. But, here\u2019s the good news.\n<\/p>\n

\n\tBy expected results from runs scored and allowed, the Twins should be 23-18 headed into Tuesday\u2019s road opener against the Orioles. That\u2019s the fifth-best expected win-loss rate in the American League, and it\u2019s better than the Royals and Guardians, both of whom have gotten a bit lucky so far. Cleveland even has a negative run differential, despite being six games over .500.\n<\/p>\n

\n\tAs it stands, comparing the Twins to the rest of the Central, the Twins have the best pitching by fWAR, and only the Tigers are getting more hitter fWAR than the Twins. While past results aren\u2019t necessarily predictive of future performance, this is still a great sign.\n<\/p>\n

\n\tPitching Staff
Speaking of pitching, this is an easy place to celebrate success. After a rocky first turn through the rotation, the Twins’ starting staff has been lights out. Dating back to April 2, among all American League teams, the Twins pitching staff ranks: first in fWAR (6.9), first in FIP (3.25), third in ERA (2.93), third in strikeouts per nine innings (9.3). They have the best walk rate (2.3) and the lowest WHIP (1.11).\n<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\n\tFolks, that\u2019s officially elite. Headed into the season, national publications had the Twins among the league leaders in both starting and relief pitching, and despite fans turning this into a punchline on this site and social media, it turns out the prognosticators were correct. The pitching has been a real strength, and there\u2019s no reason to suspect it will implode anytime soon.\n<\/p>\n

\n\tPablo L\u00f3pez, Bailey Ober, and Joe Ryan have been a formidable three-headed monster, Chris Paddack has put up a sub-3.00 ERA (although secondary results haven\u2019t been as pretty) and Simeon Woods Richardson has been just fine as a fifth starter. For relievers<\/a>, Jhoan Duran and Danny Coulombe have been nails<\/a>, Justin Topa and Louis Varland has been solid, and Brock Stewart and Griffin Jax almost certainly won\u2019t pitch as poorly as they have so far this season.\n<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\n\tHitters
This aspect of the Twins has been (and may continue to be) enigmatic. Similar to the pitching staff, Twins hitters (aside from Harrison Bader and Ty France) began their season ice-cold. Dating back to that same April 2 cutoff we looked at for the pitching staff, though, the hitters have been decidedly average. Which, for those of you paying attention headed into the season, that’s also where national publications had the hitters performing. More recently, looking at just the past month, the Twins have no fewer than six hitters with an .800 OPS or better.\n<\/p>\n

\n\tMatt Wallner will be back before too long, and it\u2019s probably fair to assume he will pick up where he left off: mashing baseballs. Byron Buxton has looked like a guy who will receive MVP votes this season. Harrison Bader looks like an All-Star, offensively and defensively. Carlos Correa has shown signs of heating up after the worst start of his professional career. Luke Keaschall looked like he belonged, prior to his injury. Plus, the Twins just got Royce Lewis back\u2014a slugger who, when he\u2019s right, is capable of carrying the team for a week or two at a time. While the results have been inconsistent, the talent level is high, and should be trending up.\n<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\n\tDepth
Beyond the guys getting it done with the big-league club, depth is still an exciting part of what fans can look forward to later in the year. On the pitching side, Zebby Matthews and David Festa continue to wait their turn for a chance, whether it\u2019s injury or performance that creates it. Andrew Morris and Travis Adams are behind them should things get truly desperate, or should a swingman or long reliever be needed on the big-league roster.\n<\/p>\n

\n\tFor hitters, Carson McCusker keeps making opposing pitching pay by crushing longballs and making hard contact to all fields. Keaschall will be back at some point, and we saw what he makes possible on the base paths and at the plate. And, Emmanuel Rodriguez hasn\u2019t shown great results so far this season at Saint Paul, but he\u2019s shown his hitting prowess at each level, so it\u2019s likely a matter of him getting time to find his stroke. He\u2019s been heating up a bit, and could be a realistic option in the second half, assuming health.\n<\/p>\n

\n\tCompared to the other AL Central contenders, the Twins have enviable, high-end depth that should help them weather the injuries that will inevitably befall the team. Their pitching should continue to lead the league, and the hitting should be better than they started. This combination of factors, especially assuming continued solid play, should give fans a reason to keep watching all throughout the summer. It’s only a coin-flip that they’ll reach October\u2014but we’d all gladly have flipped that coin not long ago.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Coming into the 2025 season, the Twins were the odds-on favorite to win the division. Since then… Look,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":25477,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2388],"tags":[5,2223,365,3276,822,60,3190,4,1997,148],"class_list":{"0":"post-25476","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-minnesota-twins","8":"tag-baseball","9":"tag-byron-buxton","10":"tag-harrison-bader","11":"tag-jhoan-duran","12":"tag-minnesota","13":"tag-minnesota-twins","14":"tag-minnesotatwins","15":"tag-mlb","16":"tag-pablo-lopez","17":"tag-twins"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/114504519322789229","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25476","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25476"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25476\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25477"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25476"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25476"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25476"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}