Twins Have to Weather April Storms

[Nash Walker]

The Twins’ 2022 schedule is an exciting mix of challenging stretches, light runs, and everything in-between. April offers perhaps their most difficult month of the year. 

The Twins’ first ten games of the season are against teams that won 90 or more games last year. The Mariners added Jesse Winker, Robbie Ray, and uber-prospect Julio Rodríguez to a talented roster that lost only 72 games in 2021. The Dodgers, baseball’s premier team, signed superstar Freddie Freeman. The heart of the Red Sox lineup is as dangerous as any, and the Twins must face them in their home-opening series at Fenway. Tough sledding. 

No one is crying for the Twins. The team insisted they were trying to compete this year, and if you can’t hang with the best teams, you have no business making a run to the postseason. The Twins’ most-winnable series of April is a three-game set at Kauffman Stadium next week, but the Royals have always played the Twins tough, especially in Kansas City. 

The good news for a Twins club needing a solid start is that May lightens up considerably. Four games in Baltimore, six games against the now-lowly Athletics, and 13 straight games against the Royals and Tigers await. The Twins, if they are a real contender this year, should be able to handle most of those matchups. It’s how they won 101 games in 2019. They'll have to do it without Alex Kirilloff and Jorge Alcala, at least for now. 

The Twins ended their season extremely early last year. They dug a hole so deep (14-28 record) before the summer months even arrived. It’s okay to find your footing early, and it would be understandable for the Twins to scuffle a hair in the first half with young starters on the rise. There’s a stark difference, though, between scuffling and sinking. The Twins have to remain around .500 through April. 

The goal: 11-11 or 10-12 by the end of the Tampa Bay series on May 1st. It’s a relatively low bar, but April rivals August as the Twins’ most challenging month. If they can weather the storm, they should be in a good spot when the calendar flips to April. Of course, they still have to play and win those lighter games.

The Twins project to win between 80 and 86 games this year. Taking care of business against visibly-inferior teams (Royals, A’s, Orioles) is essential, but so is managing the tough stretches. The difference between 11-11 April and an 8-14 April is massive. If we manage expectations, the Twins should be shooting for a record that’s five or six games above .500 by the All-Star Break. They have the ammunition to add at the deadline and make a push in August and September. 

The Twins will show us glimpses of who they are as soon as this weekend at Fenway. Split or win the series, and things are looking up. Lose three out of four or get swept, and the confidence will continue to dwindle. You are your record, after all. 

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[JW24]

I am looking forward to seeing how the Twins play Boston after the Dodgers pummeled them this week. The 2019 Twins made it into late July or August before they had a 3 game losing streak, I think. That is the type of fight I hope this years team has as well.

[Doctor Gast]

For sure April is tough but we have been hanging with the competition. All our SPs have keep us in the games, except the game we conceded to LAD. We can definitely compete but management is making it more dificult. I don't know what to do with Pallack, I wasn't in favor of that trade. We trade our legit closer for a broken SP. We no longer have spring training to fix him, how are we going to fix him on fly? He doesn't fit our mold, do we have some one lined up to trade to ?

Our OF is pretty thin, we have Buxton & Kepler but after that we have ailing Kiriloff, then Celestino and Larnach who needs more ABs at AAA. I really like Gordon who tries hard and his hitting is coming along but his arm is weak. Then  we have, heaven save us, Garlick. We have a predicament.

Almost all teams have been adding quality depth at CF throughout the off season MN has NOT. CF depth is something that MN tends to forget about, after Buxton there is a hugh drop off. We need an answer and no that answer isn't Cave, no matter how much they try to prop him up. We don't need a no glove corner OF that may or may not hit, we need a RH hitting CF who can play all fields.

We have a great team! But right now we have more questions than we had started, in closing, catching, CF subbing/ 4th OF, log jams at corner fielders/ DH, what to do w/ Pallack and a front line  SP would be nice. Most of those ?s could have been solved before the lock out if they had the vision to do so.

I remain positive because we have a lot of talent to work with and these problems are minor they only need to be adressed.

[RJA]

 Good article.  I agree that struggling a bit at the start of a season is not fatal, but an early season collapse like last year is impossible to overcome.  Actually, the starting pitching has been better than expected, but the offense looks out of sync.  It is remindful of last year--we tend to get 10 runs in one game and then don't score much at all in the following two or three games, and then score 10 again and repeat the cycle.  The swing and miss on this team seems to prevent it from stringing too many hits together.  We did lose two of our most professional hitters from last year, Cruz and Donaldson, so I hope Correa and Polanco really hit their stride soon (Sano??) or the feast or famine is likely to continue.  

[Unwinder]

51 minutes ago, Doctor Gast said:

We need an answer and no that answer isn't Cave, no matter how much they try to prop him up.

I hate to break it to you, but Cave is doing all he can to force their hand with his numbers for the Saints.

[Doctor Gast]

1 hour ago, Unwinder said:

I hate to break it to you, but Cave is doing all he can to force their hand with his numbers for the Saints.

I hate to break it to you, but that's exactly what I've been alluding to. Cave's early arrival to camp for training and conditioning, then soft bats during ST all aids him in AAA and propaganda to bring him back. That's what I mean by proping him up. Together with bring up Garlick, I don't see that ending well. Which leaves the fans crying for Caves return.

[tony&rodney]

The Twins should have a decent idea of what their club is like by June 1.

[DocBauer]

The bad news is April could be a tough month. The worse news is Kirilloff and Alcala are already out for an undetermined time. (I've heard no updates at this time). And now, Buck may be out for a handful of games at best. We're also unsure how good the pen might be, and seem to still be missing a decent RH hitting OF. It feels like the team isn't "complete" yet. And that might be true. And I'm not convinced the FO is done yet, but we'll see.

The good news is the team isn't quite "complete" yet, or hitting on all cylinders yet, but have still looked good. So as of today, we're 3-4. The rotation has been better than expected, despite SSS. Bundy and Archer were better than expected in start #1. Ryan was OK his first game, and great in start #2. Ober wasn't great, but OK, and again, ONE START. You can feel good, or bad, depending on how you want to view things, but the 2 worst bullpen appearances were the 2 most experienced and dependable guys. But if a pair of counted on guys have a couple bad games in the first 6 games, but everyone else looks good, what do you really have to complain about? We're still talking very SSS after a week of games. The offense hasn't been fully clicking yet, to be sure. And we've blown some opportunities that ONE HIT could have easily flipped the early record. But really, except for 1 game, IIRC, we've been in every game through at least 7 innings. 

It just feels to me we have a potentially good to very good team, but everyone is sort of still "settling in" and getting their legs under them. There's been a lot of change, the majority very late in the offseason. If the Twins can keep their heads above water for April, I think they have a chance to be pretty damn good based on talent on hand, young talent on hand and close, and the ability to add a player or two to add.

[Whitey333]

Yes of course it's early.  Remember last year?  They kept telling us don't worry it's early.  They never did recover and finished 16 games under and finished in last place.  So far the starting pitching has been better than anticipated.  But it's early there too.  The offense has been poor so far entering Fridays game with Boston the team is hitting .181.  it's early there too. Our $35 million dollar shortstop is hitting around .200.  while Buxton has 3 Homer's he is also hitting just above 200 and tied for the team lead in strikeouts.  The team as a whole has the second worst strikeout rate only to the Orioles.  Our best average hitter, Aareaz at around .313 doesn't play much because of Baldelli and his analytics computer managing.  And maybe because Aareaz has no position.  He can't field.  He looks totally lost at third base.  Team defense is horrendous.  Too many errors and too many plays that should have been made but weren't counted as errors.  Yes it's early there too.  And in reality it is early.  I'm hopeful they take the Boston series then sweep the royals on KC.  I agree, April schedule is tough!  We need to get through it around .500 and feast on a weak may schedule.  Last year after 7 games we were 5-2.  This year 3-4.  Let's hope Buxton isn't out long.  Remember it's early.  Poor baseball in April doesn't matter.  Right?  That's what they told us last year right to the end of the season.  Come on Twins. A contending, twins team makes for a great summer!

[LastOnePicked]

"The Twins will show us glimpses of who they are as soon as this weekend at Fenway."

Well, we've seen the glimpses now. Yes, it's early, but these glimpses have me thinking more about the trade deadline than the postseason.

We heard a lot about the Giants-style increase of the coaching staff this offseason. I can't tell if this team is under-coached or over-coached, but they don't seem ready to hit or to play defense.

[LA VIkes Fan]

The one ray of hope is that neither Correa or Polanco is hitting at all so there may be some offense that going to come around. Other than that, this is your team at the plate team folks. The starting pitching has actually been better than expected, and the bullpen has either been quite effective or a complete meltdown with nothing in between. The big disappointment is the offense and the only real hope for it to improve is Correa and Polanco hitting like the All-Stars they are. The only other hope is that 2 or 3 of Sano, Larnach, Kepler, Jeffers, or Gordon becomes a quality hitter.  I'm not liking the odds on any of them breaking out and really not liking the odds on 2 or 3 of them breaking out.  This could get ugly,