Ugly statistics indicate why Twins still winless

The only numbers that matter to the Twins right now are 0-7. That's their record, the worst start in franchise history, though manager Paul Molitor, having survived and even thrived after last year's 1-6 debut, said it hasn't affected his team's determination.

"Last year, I had to try to find ways to individually convince people that we were going to be all right. This year, I think they know that," Molitor said Monday, when the Twins dropped their home opener 4-1 to the Chicago White Sox. "There's always some doubt, a little bit. Your mind can play tricks. But I still think we have a lot of confidence in the clubhouse despite the fact we're the only winless team in the American League."

This being baseball, there are plenty of other numbers that pinpoint a variety of weaknesses to plague the Twins through this first week.

Here's a quick look at six of them:

The Twins thought their offense would be their strength this season, but their inability to string together hits — they have been held to one hit or none in 54 of their 64 innings so far — has sunk them to the bottom, with barely more than one-fourth as many runs (13) as the Cardinals (48) have scored.

"We pitched well enough to win a lot of games. We just haven't hit enough," Molitor said. "Our run totals … there's just a lot of things that, if we were running on a higher cylinder level, would be different."

It's been incredibly frustrating, the Twins say, to create scoring opportunities but never cash in on them. The Twins' absurd batting average trails the 29th-ranked Mets by 65 points, so the good news is, this level of failure isn't really sustainable. The Twins batted .280 with runners on second or third last season, after all, which was third-best in the majors.

The Twins understand that young players tend to strike out more frequently, but they didn't expect the whiffs to mount up this quickly. The Twins are averaging 11.2 strikeouts per game, which would blow past the major league strikeout record by Labor Day. They swing and miss at more pitches than any other team, and Miguel Sano (13), Byung Ho Park (12) and Byron Buxton (11) entered Tuesday ranked second, fourth and fifth among MLB strikeout leaders.

"The answer is clear: My timing is totally off. I'm going to work hard on [fixing] that," Park said through an interpreter. "It would have been awesome if I could have helped out the team. But every day is a lesson for me."

The bullpen's 4.70 ERA, nearly a full run worse than last season's 3.92, is bad enough. But at a time when the offense is so feeble, it's even more disheartening for the most trusted members of the bullpen — Glen Perkins, Kevin Jepsen and Trevor May — to give away the few leads the Twins have managed to build.

"I didn't get the job done. So that stings," Perkins said after surrendering the tying two runs Sunday at Kansas City.

But Molitor said his faith hasn't been shaken, not much. "When you have guys with the track record and the experience of [Perkins and Jepsen], it gives you confidence that they'll figure it out and get back on the right track," the manager said. "We just have to have patience."

Even with Buxton, who rates as one of the top three center fielders in the game with his glove, the Twins have given up five unearned runs, most in baseball. For a team that has scored only 13 runs, that's a lot.

No AL team's hitters fall behind in the count 0-1 more than the Twins (134 times already), and no AL team has been less capable of getting a hit from behind. In seven games, the Twins have only 11 hits when the pitcher has an advantage, and if the count reaches two strikes, the at-bat might as well be over. Park is 0-for-15 after a second strike, with 12 strikeouts.