Minnesota Twins: The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly

Logan Morrison’s start

Logan Morrison has started his Minnesota Twins career about as bad as a player can. There is a reason Morrison lingered on the free agent market for so long and those reasons have shown through to begin the season.

Morrison already has 20 strikeouts in his first 20 games with the Twins. He has looked lost at the plate and has done little to earn his $5 million salary. For Minnesota to turn things around they will need LoMo to find his groove and start cracking some home runs.

There have been signs of life in his bat of late. He has five hits in his last 20 plate appearances with a .400 on-base percentage. That constitutes a hot streak for Morrison after starting the season with only six hits in his first 63 plate appearances with a .206 on-base percentage. Morrison hasn’t started hitting home runs, but he will, and that will be the key for a Minnesota turnaround.

Fernando Rodney and other members of the bullpen

The Twins rebuilt their bullpen over the offseason and Fernando Rodney was a big part of the plan. However, that plan has backfired and Rodney has been a key culprit. He has a 2.3 HR/9 and a 4.7 BB/9 in nine games pitched during the 2018 season.

The Minnesota Twins bullpen as a whole hasn’t been very good so far this season. Outside of a couple of pitchers that we’ll discuss later, the results have rarely been there from the pen. Taylor Rodgers has been the worst in the bullpen surrendering 10 runs in only 10 2/3 innings pitched.

He is far from the only pitcher who is underperforming. It seems almost everybody that Paul Molitor brings in gives up runs consistently. Hopefully, they can turn things around or this will be a long season in the Twin Cities.

An honorable mention shout out to Lance Lynn for his ugly 7.11 ERA during four starts in April. However, that’s enough of the ugly for now, let’s take a look at some of the bad performances.