
The Twins' 0-7 start has elicited varying levels of concern among Twins fans (and the Twins themselves). While nobody would suggest an 0-7 start is good (#analysis), in the context of a 162-game season there is time to recover. But if the Twins keep playing the way they're playing, they won't recover. And even if they improve, the hole they've dug in just one week is quite deep. It took an extraordinary set of circumstances for Minnesota to recover from a 1-6 start last season to have the best record in the American League at the end of May (and contend all season).
So if the question is, "Should we panic about the Twins?" the answers are varied. To illustrate that, I surveyed three local baseball bloggers for their input. I gave each of them an unrealistic goal of summing up their argument in 100 words. One of them adhered to it!
(Note: All of them wrote BEFORE closer Glen Perkins went on the DL). Here are all three:
Brandon Warne, Twins beat writer for Cold Omaha.
It's far too soon to worry about this Twins team even at 0-7. While the track record of teams starting 0-7 is not strong, plenty of teams have been seven games under .500 at some point and come back to have success. In fact, the 1991 (2-9) and 2006 Twins (25-33) came back to not only get their seasons back on track, but post the fourth- and fifth-most wins in a single season in post-Senators club history (96 in 2006; 95 in 1991).
It's a bad situation to be sure, but this team is too skilled to play this badly all season long. This team has struck out 30.4 percent of the time so far through seven games; just one team in MLB history – the 2013 Houston Astros — has fanned over 25 percent of the time. That's bound to not only get better, but a lot better. And finally, there are enough moving parts to make this work. With Max Kepler and Jorge Polanco basically big-league ready and a number of guys who can play multiple positions, it's not the death knell if this team doesn't get production out of someone like Byung Ho Park or Eddie Rosario.
What can and may kill this offense is if Miguel Sano struggles for an extended period. In the middle of the lineup, he's an indispensable piece to wherever this offense is heading. And while he started slow last year — .159/.303/.381 in 76 April plate appearances at Chattanooga — keep this in mind: he was coming off missing an entire season with Tommy John surgery. That's obviously not the case here.
Seth Stohs, who writes for Twinsdaily.com and keeps a sharp eye on the Twins' minor league system.