Twins plummet in standings as quick starts become a thing of the past

Arriving late to a Twins game once frequently meant missing all the good stuff. Now? Feel free to stroll in fashionably late. The Twins certainly do.

The Twins' four-month tenure atop the American League Central was fed by fast starts, by aggressively taking charge of games. Byron Buxton smashing home runs, Luis Arraez launching hitting streaks, the top of the batting order creating so much havoc. For much of the summer, they led the AL in first-inning runs, handing their starting pitchers a lead to work with.

But just as they have tumbled in the division standings, they have fallen to fourth place in quick starts, having scored right away in only two of their 10 September starts and managed only 30 runs overall, fewer than any AL team. That partly explains why they never led at any point in being swept by the Guardians over the weekend — a problem the Twins have endured all month.

The Twins have played 93 innings this month, and held a lead after only 16 of them, going 2-8 to fall five games behind Cleveland, this after the teams were tied for first place entering play on Labor Day.

"I want the runs early, and I want the runs late," manager Rocco Baldelli said. "Consistency in at-bats is what we look for. I like that we go out there late in games and score two, three, four runs. Stringing those together earlier in a game would help."

The difference between a team that scored 25 first-inning runs in May and fewer than half as many (12) in August and only four through almost two weeks of September is fairly obvious: The inning almost never includes their top early-game run producers.

Buxton, afflicted by a hip injury, played 23 games in May and 14 in August and has not made an appearance so far in September. Second baseman Jorge Polanco hasn't played in two weeks due to a sore knee. Right fielder Max Kepler, playing with a broken toe and now hampered by a hip problem, has managed nine innings only three times this month, and when he has played, he has done little — hitting .178 with no homers and four RBI in 30 games since the start of August.

No, first-inning runs aren't so critical if teams can seize their opportunities whenever they happen, but that's been a problem for the Twins all season. Their dismal .708 OPS with runners in scoring position ranks 21st in Major League Baseball, and even that looks effective compared with what's happened in September: a .620 OPS in their best scoring chances.

A prime example for the offensive troubles came Sunday. The Twins, trailing 2-1, put runners at the corners to start the seventh when Gio Urshela and Nick Gordon began the inning with singles off Cleveland ace Shane Bieber. Neither runner moved from there. Kyle Garlick popped out against Bieber before lefthander Sam Hentges retired little-used rookie Jermaine Palacios — pinch hitting in his 35th major league plate appearance — on an infield lineout, then struck out Gary Sanchez on three pitches.

It's a frustrating problem for an offense that still ranks in the top half of the AL in overall scoring. But Kepler, for instance, bats only .196 with runners on second or third base, and he has homered in those high-stress situations for pitchers only once. That's one more than Carlos Correa, who has driven in only 23 runners in 106 such plate appearances. And Buxton, oddly, has a .145 average and .635 OPS in those critical at-bats.

As a team, those runners-on numbers have declined in every month since May. The Twins offense, in other words, has gradually ground down as the summer has gone on and the injuries have piled up. It hasn't been a playoff-worthy unit for the past six weeks, when Buxton, Polanco and Kepler have been largely absent and players such as Gordon, Jake Cave and Gilberto Celestino are being asked to play nearly every day.

"We have to simply elevate, each and every one of us has to elevate right now, and go play above where we've been this past week," Baldelli said. "That's it, plain and simple."