The Twins have won the Central; how’d we get here and what’s next?
The Minnesota Twins, finally claimed the American League Central crown of Friday night in an 8–6 victory over the lowly Los Angeles Angels. Despite it being the worst division in baseball and sitting at just 82 wins, this title is no small feat for this Twins club they battled through first half adversity and offensive struggle to finally hot their stride in the second half, going 37–27 so far in the second half. Good for about a 94 win pace.
While celebrating the A.L central title and the accomplishment to get to this point, this team has their sights set in one thing success in October.
A 3–0 loss on Wednesday June 30th in Atlanta was the low point of the season to that point for the Twins. The loss dropped them to 40–42 and 0.5 game out of first place in the division. Their performance was very representative of the season up until that point, Kenta Maeda turned in a strong 5.0 inning start allowing just 5 hits and 2 earned runs against a Braves lineup that has been the best in baseball this season.
The Twins lineup however could muster just 4 hits and 0 runs and a whopping 14 strikeouts, including 8 against Kolby Allard a left handed starter with a 6.57 ERA on the season.
This prompted one of the more iconic moments of the Twins season, a closed door meeting in Atlanta before heading to Baltimore. In Baltimore perhaps one of the more famous and defining images of the season was birthed. A simple whiteboard message stating Let the season begin…
An obvious rallying cry to put the previous offensive futility behind them and come up with a new strategy. Initially it seemed to work an 8–1 win over Baltimore followed and a series win followed by a series sweep at home over Kansas city. A sweep at the hands of those same Orioles at home before the all star break put a halt to any optimism.
The Twins limped to the all star break with a 45–46 record a .5 game back of the Guardians. They would finish out the month of July with a 54–53 record, closing out the month getting swept by the lowly Kansas City Royals.
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In August though the Twins finally hit their stride, their best month since April, a 15–12 record for the month, with notable series wins over the Diamondbacks, Phillies and Rangers. Opening up a 5.0 game lead over the collapsing Cleveland Guardians.
The Twins did suffer a minor setback at the end of August dropping 2 of 3 to the Guardians, but they recovered quickly taking 2 of 3 against the Rangers in Arlington and riding that momentum into the biggest series of the year against the Guardians in Cleveland.
The tone was set early in game 1, when the Twins rode a 2nd inning Royce Lewis grand slam of Lucas Giolito to a 20–6 stomping of the Guardians.
The Twins followed that with an 8–3 victory the next night to bury the Guardians, and leave Cleveland with a six game lead.
If there is one thing this Twins team has proven in the second half it’s that they are resilient. They overcame their early offensive struggles, the Twins now rank 11th in wRC+ at 107, 10th in wOBA at .324, 5th in total home runs with 222. Largely driven by the performances of rookies.
At the same time while the pitching staff has taken a step back from their other worldly first half performance, they still manage to rank 6th in ERA, and 3rd in FIP. They will head into the playoffs with their best 1–2 pitching combo since 2006 in Pablo Lopez and Sonny Gray and more than a few solid game 3 options in Joe Ryan, Kenta Maeda and Bailey Ober.
Even the bullpen the biggest weak spot of the team in the second half is getting more than a few solid options returning from the IL. Louie Varland has proven he could be weapon in just a few appearances out of the pen. Add in Brock Stewart, Chris Paddack and maybe even Jorge Alcala and the Twins have the making of a more than formidable bullpen.
It’s hard to have confidence in a team who may only win about 87 games max in the worst division in baseball and a franchise that has gone 0 for their las 18 in the postseason dating back to the Bush administration. But dig deep and look at the way this roster is constructed it is easily the most well rounded Twins group in some time and looks as if it may be built for October.
