The Minnesota Twins dropped the opener to the St. Louis Cardinals on Thursday, 5-3. Sonny Gray outdueled former teammate Pablo Lopez, with both going five innings and giving up a home run.
The difference between the two was a pair of unearned runs allowed by Lopez, who was uncharacteristically rattled a little bit by two St. Louis runners breaking early from first base, but still reaching second safely (a balk was called on the first, and a wild throw from Lopez waylaid the other).
A Lars Nootbaar two-run home run in the second inning staked the Cardinals to a 3-0 lead, and it reached 4-0 before the Twins broke through with a two-run homer from Harrison Bader in the fifth.
The Twins tacked on a run in the sixth as well, but Nolan Arenado's homer off Griffin Jax gave the Cards a little extra cushion and Ryan Helsley slammed the door in the ninth to send the Busch Stadium fans home happy.
Here are some possible overreactions to Thursday's loss, and what they may — or may not — be valid:
Lopez carried his Spring Training struggles into the regular season
This is a really easy case to make, mostly because overreactions after one game only have that game to rely upon. Unless, that is, you also lump in Spring Training, which overreactors are going to be perfectly fine with if it confirms their priors.
Lopez wasn't perfect; far from it, in fact. But the goofs on throws to second when runners broke early don't really hold up when compared to his perceived Spring Training shortcoming. Sure, it's not ideal to botch one, let alone both, of those plays...but they happen.
One curious contention, noted by our own Dave Brown who was in St. Louis for the opener, was about how catcher Ryan Jeffers felt like the Cardinals got a bit "lucky" with their hits finding holes, as Brown said in the opening moments of the most recent Locked On Twins.
That's an assertion I'm far less comfortable with. Lopez allowed seven batted balls that came off the bat at 100 mph or faster. Jordan Walker's single in the second inning had an exit velocity of 116.5 mph, the second-hardest-hit ball Lopez has allowed in his career.
Less concerning with Lopez's performance were found in the details. His fastball averaged 94.8 mph and touched 97.3, which is a perfectly fine place to be early in the season. The home run he allowed to Nootbaar was on a changeup that against righties would probably be an acceptable location for it.
But against lefties, soft and down goes a long way. Lopez will look to get back on track next time out against the White Sox in Chicago.
The Twins' offense is already in midseason form with its rough performance in big spots
This is mostly fan bias coming through, again because it's just one game that the team A. did not win and B. did not hit particularly well in.
Maybe it's a minute difference, but it's easy enough to say "that wasn't a great offensive effort today" without suggesting it's anything more than that.
It's one game. We don't know anything yet. Offensive struggles may come in a few different shapes, but largely they come down to not coming through in big spots (runners on, etc). Failure in those spots is routine based on the simple nature of the game.
I get the gripes, generally — the Twins were 1-for-8 with runners in scoring position and stranded the bases loaded early — but a fair bit of this is just "it's baseball" kind of stuff.
The top of the order is a problem
Well at least on Thursday, this was true.
Matt Wallner, Carlos Correa and Byron Buxton combined to go 0-for-12 with four strikeouts, and only reached base once overall with Wallner drawing a walk in his leadoff debut.
While that does leave the rest of the lineup going 8-for-22 on the day (.364), these are the guys with the keys to the offense.
But it's extremely difficult to win when your Nos. 1-2-3 batters go hitless. Last season, the Twins were 2-6 in such games last season. In 2023, the Twins were 3-9 in those games.
The top of the order doing what it did on Thursday is a problem, but it's far too hasty to call the arrangement an issue anytime soon.
Harrison Bader might actually be the team's starting left fielder
This one, I think, might actually be worth looking into. It wasn't just that Bader's homecoming to Busch Stadium was an offensive fireworks show with a two-run homer and a double in the ninth to keep the game alive, but he also made a terrific play on Walker's single in the second inning.
That ball was absolutely smashed, and it was into a corner at Busch Stadium that Bader isn't actually all that familiar with (he's played a lot more CF and RF than anything else there), and yet he played the carom perfectly.
If the Twins plan to optimize their outfield defense, and they likely do based on their starting staff's propensity for allowing fly balls, this might be more of a Bader-in-left, Trevor Larnach-at-DH scenario than we previously believed.
And think about it...maybe Bader chose the Twins because he was promised such a role. Is it that far fetched?
Is Griffin Jax....mortal?
Again, it's far too early to make any sort of assertions like this. True enough, Jax allowed a home run on a four-seam fastball — something he did only twice last season — but his velocity looked good (97.5 mph average on four-seamers) and Nolan Arenado is a future Hall of Famer (at least it felt like they said that a lot on the broadcast Thursday).
Sometimes a good hitter just beats a good pitcher.