Move outdoors hasn't been entirely great for Twins

The vast majority of Twins fans (and players) would agree with this sentiment: Target Field is a massive upgrade over the Metrodome as a home field.

Any nostalgia over two World Series victories or longing for a roof during the occasional rain delay is obscured by spending months outside in the summer watching baseball, which roughly 112 percent of Minnesotans value dearly.

One sneaky consequence, however, of the move from the Dome to Target Field in 2010 has shown up early on in seasons.

In six of the Twins' seven seasons at Target Field, they have opened the season on the road — acknowledging that Minneapolis figures to be as cold as or colder than any other major league city in the beginning of April.

And those opening road trips — coming immediately on the heels of more than a month away from home at spring training — have tended to put the Twins in an early hole.

The biggest exception was 2010, when the Twins won their last AL Central title and started 5-2 on a season-opening seven-game road trip. Since then, the Twins have fallen on harder early times while starting out away from home.

From 2011 to the present, the Twins have opened on the road every season but 2013. Most of the trips were six games, and the Twins didn't come home with a winning record after any of them. Combined, the Twins have gone 6-21 on those opening trips. Here's the breakdown:

2012: The Twins were swept at Baltimore and returned to Target Field 0-3 on the way to a 7-21 start and another 90-plus-loss season.

2014: Minnesota went a decent 3-3 on its opening road trip and stayed close to .500 for most of the first half of the season before tailing off and finishing 70-92.

2015: In Paul Molitor's first season as manager, the Twins went 1-5 to start the year on the road and looked like a complete disaster doing it. They rallied to finish the year 83-79, but those early losses haunted them.

2016: With expectations raised after last year's above-.500 finish, the Twins again sputtered out of the gate at 0-6. Five of those six losses were by one or two runs, but they are losses still. It remains to be seen how that rough start will impact the rest of the season.

That stands in contrast to the final nine seasons at the Metrodome, when the Twins started the season at home five of the nine times. While the results were mixed for the Twins in those seasons at the Dome — the Twins rarely put themselves in a big hole early, regardless of a home or away start, owing in part to being competitive each season — they at least had options.