MLB Insider: Twins missing out on league's strikeout trend

There's a revolution going on in baseball these days, or at least an awfully fast evolution. Whichever it is, word has yet to reach Minnesota.

April had the highest number of strikeouts of any month in major league history, and the past eight seasons are the eight highest-K seasons ever, a ramping-up of whiffage that is fundamentally changing the game. But the old-school Twins don't play that way yet.

At least their starting rotation doesn't.

Twins starters came into the weekend with 84 strikeouts, essentially half of the major-league average of 161, and a little more than a third of the Red Sox's league-leading 222. That's the fewest in baseball, and it's not close; Colorado had the 29th most, with 114.

This is nothing new; Twins' starters had the fewest strikeouts last year, too, with 541. Heck, Philadelphia's starters had almost as many K's (918) as Minnesota's entire staff (943).

But while the rest of baseball goes K-crazy, the Twins' current five starters are heading in the opposite direction. With their current pace, they will strike out 439 hitters, more than 100 fewer than 2012, when they were already an extreme outlier. Kevin Correia and Vance Worley, the Twins' strikeout leaders, were tied for 141st place in the majors entering the weekend.

To shore up their rotation, the Twins signed Correia and Mike Pelfrey and traded for Worley over the winter, and only Worley ever had a strikeout rate — the percentage of plate appearances that result in Ks — above 20 percent, considered good for a major leaguer. None is higher now than Worley's dramatically lower 12.7 percent, though to be fair, all three are walking far fewer hitters than in the past, too.

"No, I'm not concerned. It's just a matter of me being down in the zone. My last few outings, I feel like I'm getting stronger," Worley said. "And it's just a matter of getting my pitches down. ... I'm doing something right if I'm not walking guys. ... I'm not trying to be more cautious. It's a matter of throwing quality strikes."

Only 11.7 percent of plate-appearances result in strikeouts against Twins starters this year, an alarmingly low number. Only the staffs of the 2005-06 Royals, the 2002-03 Tigers and the 2003 Rockies have approached that number, and only the 74-win Rockies avoided 100 losses in that group.

The Twins tend to offset their strikeout rate by allowing fewer walks and home runs than most teams, too, and it works to some extent. They've given up the fewest walks in baseball this year, half as many as 10 other teams, and rank 26th in home runs allowed by starting pitchers (after giving up the second most a year ago, which accounts for a large part of their improvement).

But the rotation's Batting Average on Balls in Play, or BABIP, is .336, second highest in the game. All those extra hits aren't doing as much damage as they would if the Twins were walking hitters, too. But Twins' pitchers are making life harder on themselves by not joining the swing-and-a-miss revolution.

CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE

Michael Bourn, who signed a four-year, $48 million contract in February, badly cut his right index finger while sliding into first base April 14. He had two homers in the season's first 10 games.
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When John Danks returns from a shoulder injury, the White Sox will have four lefthanders to go with righty Jake Peavy in their rotation.

But Hector Santiago told the Sun-Times that it won't be a problem. "[Chris] Sale is a slider guy, I'm a changeup guy, [Jose] Quintana is a cutter guy and Danks, I've heard ... he's locating his fastball. It's a different day every day."
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Denard Span reminded the Tigers last week why they were glad Minnesota traded him, collecting a single, double and triple in a two-game series in Washington against Detroit. "I have always hated facing him," catcher Alex Avila said of Span, who owns a .344 lifetime average against the Tigers.

Defending Culbreth

It was a bad week for umpires, and a historic one, too. A day after Angel Hernandez incorrectly ruled Adam Rosales' home run a double even after looking at a video replay, leading to an Indians victory over the Athletics when the score should have been tied, the four-man crew headed by Fieldin Culbreth in the Astros-Angels series didn't correctly apply the rule that says a pitcher must face at least one batter. Culbreth was suspended for two games by Major League Baseball.

Orioles manager Buck Showalter said he is careful not to judge too harshly. "I was fortunate or unfortunate enough to referee college basketball," he said. "I know how hard those jobs are."

Not defending Hernandez

As for Hernandez, who earned lots of negativeattention during the World Baseball Classic for terrible ball-strike calls, there was suspicion that he wasn't going to give the benefit of the doubt to the A's, who had complained mightily about his strike zone two nights earlier. Outfielder Josh Reddick even went on the record with his criticism, unusual in a baseball clubhouse, after being called out on strikes by Hernandez with the bases loaded and two out.