Even though spring has arrived the Minnesota Twins offense is still trying to thaw out. Like a frozen burger patty the Twins are just a brick of ice sitting there doing absolutely nothing.
Part of the offense are hearing up. Alex Kirilloff seemingly can’t stop hitting triples and we’ve seen flashes from guys like Ryan Jeffers and Byron Buxton. Nothing has been consistent, though, and the Twins offense looks painfully like the one we all watched limp through much of the summer last season.
During a 3-1 loss to the Cleveland Guardians on Saturday, Minnesota’s offense extended its hitless streak to 0-for-24 with runners in scoring position. For a third straight game the Twins ended an inning with the bases loaded, and the offense failed to pull its weight in a game that the team might have otherwise won.
Joe Ryan gave up a three-run home run but it was the only mistake he made. Meanwhile the Twins bullpen has a league-best 1.06 ERA despite missing three of its most important arms.
All of this is to say the offense stalling out of the gate is costing the team games, and it’s something that Carlos Correa knows needs to be fixed.
Carlos Correa sends a clear message about Twins offensive struggles
After the latest failure to launch, Correa addressed the struggles and made it clear the team needs to do something to figure things out. That’s not exactly a novel concept, but at least it’s something that the clubhouse leader is acknowledging as an issue.
“It just gets magnified when it's happening day after day. It's tough to be in that spot as a team. There's some games out there you feel like you should have won. There's a lot of work to do on our end when it comes to approach as a collective group,” Correa said. “We've just got to figure out sooner or later. We don't want to be here half a season trying to figure out when we know we're capable of doing it a lot earlier.”
Rocco Baldelli echoed this sentiment in his own postgame comments, noting that ‘it’s baseball’ when asked about the slump. He sounded confident that the bats would wake up at some point, but Correa’s point seems to be a little more dire.
Unless they’re about to embark on a historically bad season, the Twins will eventually start hitting. After all, baseball is a marathon not a sprint, but it’s also easy to fall into a hole and find it hard to dig out.
That’s a scenario Minnesota would like to avoid, especially with Cleveland looking better than last year and the Tigers finally arriving as contenders. It’s a long season and there’s still time to figure things out, but the Twins inconsistent hitting resulting in a .136 with RISP is a good way to fall behind fast.