
The Twins are eight games over .500 at 26-18, and even more impressively they are 25-12 after an awful 1-6 start. Most of us who watched them play in the first week — and even since they have started winning — are scratching our heads trying to figure out 1) what happened? and 2) can it be sustained?
David Schoenfield, who writes for ESPN.com's Sweet Spot blog, does a very nice job investigating both questions in a recent post that both praises the Twins and investigates just how exactly they are winning. Basically, they don't have a great overall offense or pitching staff, but they have done both things exceedingly well when it matters most: hitting with runners on base and holding leads in the late innings. His overall summary is consistent with what has been noted with the eye test (this point was apparently written before their most recent victory over Boston):
If there's one word to describe the 2015 Twins, it's "clutch." Timely hits, timely relief pitching. FanGraphs keeps track of a stat they call BaseRuns — the number of runs a team would be expected to score and allow given all the bases it has gained or allowed. Entering Monday, the Twins had outperformed their BaseRuns win total by seven — 25 wins as opposed to the "expected" total of 18.
This gets to a notion that's been floating around in my head: their success is easy to define, but it's hard to explain. And whether you think it's sustainable really depends on what you think of "clutch" being a real thing vs. a small sample aberration.
Some key points noted by Schoenfield:
*They're walking less. Second in the majors in walk rate in 2014, they're 24th in 2015.
*The Twins are clutching up with runners in scoring position, hitting .294/.369/.438, versus .257/.311/.388.
*The Twins have the lowest strikeout rate among pitching staff in the majors, so they have more balls in play than the average pitching staff. What the Twins staff does do is limit walks — it has the second-lowest walk rate in the majors.