Twins 8, Red Sox 6: Early Deficit Erased in Scrappy Fenway Win

[karcherd]

Regarding Keaschall's fielding, there are moments he has looked better.  It does look like going to his right he still struggles.  But he has less than a full season worth of games between the minors and major leagues at 2B.  I think he has the athleticism that he can become at least serviceable there.  Not everyone comes up a finished product.  Koskie was brutal at 3B and did improve with time.  I think a little patience is warranted as long he starts to hit better.

[JD-TWINS]

26 minutes ago, karcherd said:

Regarding Keaschall's fielding, there are moments he has looked better.  It does look like going to his right he still struggles.  But he has less than a full season worth of games between the minors and major leagues at 2B.  I think he has the athleticism that he can become at least serviceable there.  Not everyone comes up a finished product.  Koskie was brutal at 3B and did improve with time.  I think a little patience is warranted as long he starts to hit better.

Agreed - if he hits, he stays put.

Where did he play prior to 2B coming up or before drafted? I see here he may play some OF? Does he have a “natural position”?

[Western SD Fan]

More positive news this morning!  It looks like that Zoll is not as committed to old washed-up players that needed to be DFA'd as Falvey was.  To bring back Taj Bradley, they DFA's Garcia from the bullpen.  I had fully expected them to send down Rojas or Adams since he pitched last night and that is typically the easier move.  It does look like LaTroy Hawkins's message is reverberating with the younger guys in the bullpen.

[karcherd]

7 minutes ago, JD-TWINS said:

Agreed - if he hits, he stays put.

Where did he play prior to 2B coming up or before drafted? I see here he may play some OF? Does he have a “natural position”?

It doesn't look he had a natural position, he played SS and the OF mostly other than 2B in the minors and college.

[tarheeltwinsfan]

I love this game called baseball.

[CoachDW]

Hey Matt, I loved your Kennedy joke...made even better with the line about costing the author "thousands of dollars in tuition." Very nicely done.

It's not even June, and the Twins have already set a franchise record with ten different pitchers earning a save. "Closer by Committee" has become more common in recent years all across baseball, but the Twins, either through desperation or dumb luck (likely both) have seemingly perfected it. The 2021 Tampa Bay Rays and 2024 Los Angeles Dodgers, who both won their divisions and made the post-season, had 14 different pitchers garner saves and the Arizona Diamondbacks set the record last year when they had 15 guys post saves. With the way the Twins bullpen fluctuates from week to week, with new guys being brought up from the minors and veterans being added endlessly via the waiver wire, the Twins have the opportunity to shatter the all-time record -- maybe by the All-Star break. 

It's easy to see that Brooks Lee, with his limited lateral range, is much more suited for 3B than SS. I think that Luke Keaschall has made defensive progress at 2B from where he was last year, and I think letting him play there everyday instead of moving him around into the outfield has helped with that. Keep playing him at 2B day after day, and with his athleticism, I think he will become very proficient there. We all need to remember that he didn't play a ton of 2B in the minors as the Twins were moving him around from 3B, 1B, and the outfield over the past few years, and he only played 41 games there last season in the majors due to injury. Pencil him in at 2B everyday, live with the growing pains, and you will have a very good defender before too long. 

[JD-TWINS]

4 hours ago, jorgenswest said:

 I wonder how you would characterize the offenses of the 13 AL teams that have scored fewer runs than the Twins this year.

I know they score runs……… 9 - 10 - 8 - 8 - 13 - 8 - 11 - 11 - 9 - 8  ……… 9.8 runs/game over 10 games ……. skews the total run output as it relates to being competitive regularly.

They have scored 2 or less eleven times through 51 games……… 3 or less 19 times. I get that “this is baseball” but there have been too many good pitching performances washed away due to lack of run support.

They have just sent down two guys (regulars) that had terrible, terrible offensive stats. They have James Outman - Caratini - Bell - still on roster with negative WAR numbers. Lee & Clemens & Keaschall have all been under 0.00 WAR for big parts of the season.

Jeffers - Buxton - Martin - Larnach have supported the stats in a big way to date.

To be “competitive” the offense needs to play better day to day.

[ashbury]

38 minutes ago, JD-TWINS said:

I know they score runs……… 9 - 10 - 8 - 8 - 13 - 8 - 11 - 11 - 9 - 8  ……… 9.8 runs/game over 10 games ……. skews the total run output as it relates to being competitive regularly.

They have scored 2 or less eleven times through 51 games……… 3 or less 19 times. I get that “this is baseball” but there have been too many good pitching performances washed away due to lack of run support.

They have just sent down two guys (regulars) that had terrible, terrible offensive stats. They have James Outman - Caratini - Bell - still on roster with negative WAR numbers. Lee & Clemens & Keaschall have all been under 0.00 WAR for big parts of the season.

Jeffers - Buxton - Martin - Larnach have supported the stats in a big way to date.

To be “competitive” the offense needs to play better day to day.

The basic statistical concept of "mean" (i.e. "average") predominates the rate stats on every site, but I don't know of good sources for the next-level concept of "variance," which is the issue that I've long felt plagues the Minnesota offense.  It would take massive research, I think, to track down evidence to support my contention that, to a greater extent than most good teams, we feast when the opponent on the mound is subpar but regularly starve when someone of major league talent is on the mound.  Maybe such a study would convince me that my supposition is wrong...

[Linus]

14 minutes ago, ashbury said:

The basic statistical concept of "mean" (i.e. "average") predominates the rate stats on every site, but I don't know of good sources for the next-level concept of "variance," which is the issue that I've long felt plagues the Minnesota offense.  It would take massive research, I think, to track down evidence to support my contention that, to a greater extent than most good teams, we feast when the opponent on the mound is subpar but regularly starve when someone of major league talent is on the mound.  Maybe such a study would convince me that my supposition is wrong...

I agree with this. Maybe a simpler way to assess an offense is what percentage of the time do they score 3 or less runs (pick whatever number you feel assured a loss). Essentially how many times do we lose games because the offense doesn’t show up. I think this is where the Twins are suspect. Of course I’m not going to do the research so I will just assume I am correct😀

[JD-TWINS]

36 minutes ago, ashbury said:

The basic statistical concept of "mean" (i.e. "average") predominates the rate stats on every site, but I don't know of good sources for the next-level concept of "variance," which is the issue that I've long felt plagues the Minnesota offense.  It would take massive research, I think, to track down evidence to support my contention that, to a greater extent than most good teams, we feast when the opponent on the mound is subpar but regularly starve when someone of major league talent is on the mound.  Maybe such a study would convince me that my supposition is wrong...

I would suspect that the lack of success v. “good” pitchers and success against lesser opponents is pretty typical across baseball.

I remember a stretch where TWINS beat (and scored 5 plus in each instance) Skubal - Valdez - Gray - Crochet ……, so, ………….

[ashbury]

35 minutes ago, JD-TWINS said:

I would suspect that the lack of success v. “good” pitchers and success against lesser opponents is pretty typical across baseball.

I remember a stretch where TWINS beat (and scored 5 plus in each instance) Skubal - Valdez - Gray - Crochet ……, so, ………….

Yep, the concept I am trying to get at is really difficult (for me anyway) to define.  "We scored 6 runs off their bullpen - they must have all been AAAA callups."  "We beat Skubal - we beat Crochet - they must have not been on their game that day."  These could be legitimate explanations - or just typical BS after the fact.

Maybe some important factors are just unknowable.  Or maybe Big Data techniques have ways of teasing out the meaning from scads of conflicting data.  I tend to believe that if an effect is important, then evidence for it can be found if you look at the evidence correctly.  (You can also find evidence for your supposition by looking incorrectly.)

It's a bit like, we all believe a .300 hitter is better than a .260 hitter, but when you come down to individual games, anything can happen (and often does).  Maybe that .260 hitter has just as many multi-hit games as the .300 guy, but he suffers more o-fers while the .300 guy plugs along with more 1-for-4 days.  That kind of variance is completely missed in season-ending averages, but might affect how you value the two players.

I spent my career in a small corner of analytics, but I never had the technical chops to tackle a statistically-oriented question involving variance for sets of data (like in baseball) that are a bit unruly to start with.  Uniformity is lacking - some days you get 3 plate appearances in a game, some days you get 5, and how do you do a "variance" study of how many hitless days you have, in that environment?

55 minutes ago, Linus said:

I agree with this. Maybe a simpler way to assess an offense is what percentage of the time do they score 3 or less runs (pick whatever number you feel assured a loss). Essentially how many times do we lose games because the offense doesn’t show up. I think this is where the Twins are suspect. Of course I’m not going to do the research so I will just assume I am correct😀

A bit of spot-checking along these lines a few days ago didn't turn up the pattern I was hoping to be able to demonstrate to others in support of my view, so I didn't post about it.  😀

[Linus]

1 hour ago, ashbury said:

Yep, the concept I am trying to get at is really difficult (for me anyway) to define.  "We scored 6 runs off their bullpen - they must have all been AAAA callups."  "We beat Skubal - we beat Crochet - they must have not been on their game that day."  These could be legitimate explanations - or just typical BS after the fact.

Maybe some important factors are just unknowable.  Or maybe Big Data techniques have ways of teasing out the meaning from scads of conflicting data.  I tend to believe that if an effect is important, then evidence for it can be found if you look at the evidence correctly.  (You can also find evidence for your supposition by looking incorrectly.)

I spent my career in a small corner of analytics, but I never had the technical chops to tackle a statistically-oriented question like this.

A bit of spot-checking along these lines a few days ago didn't turn up the pattern I was hoping to be able to demonstrate to others in support of my view.  😀

Certainly facts should not be the important factor in our theory 😀

[Riverbrian]

3 hours ago, ashbury said:

The basic statistical concept of "mean" (i.e. "average") predominates the rate stats on every site, but I don't know of good sources for the next-level concept of "variance," which is the issue that I've long felt plagues the Minnesota offense.  It would take massive research, I think, to track down evidence to support my contention that, to a greater extent than most good teams, we feast when the opponent on the mound is subpar but regularly starve when someone of major league talent is on the mound.  Maybe such a study would convince me that my supposition is wrong...

If you found that research... I would love to see it. It has to be out there somewhere. 

I've been tracking game by game this year for other purposes... but still tracking. 

These of course are entire game run totals per starter. So bullpen will obviously be of influences but we scored some runs on the solid names and been shut down by some not so famous names. I have no conclusions drawn. 

KYLE BRADISH	R	4
SHANE BAZ	R	6
JOE BOYLE	R	10
NICK MARTINEZ	R	1
CASEY MIZE	R	7
RYAN FLAHERTY	R	3
MAX SCHERZER	R	8
SONNY GRAY	R	6
BRADY SINGER	R	4
NOLAN MCLEAN	R	5
CLAY HOLMES	R	2
CHRISTIAN SCOTT	R	8
DREW RASMUSSEN	R	2
JAX/SCHULTENS	R	2
LUIS CASTILLO	R	11
LOGAN GILBERT	R	1
GEORGE KIRBY	R	3
KEVIN GAUSMAN	R	7
DYLAN CEASE	R	4
TREY YESAVAGE	R	4
CADE CAVALLI	R	11
MILES MIKOLAS	R	2
JAKE IRVIN	R	5
TANNER BIBEE	R	2
GAVIN WILLIAMS	R	5
EURY PEREZ	R	3
MAX MAYER	R	5
COLEMAN CROW	R	2
LOGAN HENDERSON	R	1
TATSUYI IMAI	R	6
JASON ALEXANDER	R	1
MIKE BURROWS	R	4

TREVOR ROGERS	L	1
KRIS BUBIC	L	1
NOE CAMERON	L	9
COLE RAGANS	L	5
STEVEN MATZ	L	1
TARIK SKUBAL	L	4
FRAMBER VALDEZ	L	8
PATRICK CORBIN	L	4
ERIC LAUER	L	7
GARRETT CROCHET	L	13
CONNELLY EARLY	L	5
BEN WILLIAMSON	L	1
ANDREW ABBOTT	L	4
SHANE MCLANAHAN	L	1
PATRICK CORBIN	L	3
PARKER MESSICK	L	4
BRAXTON GARRETT	L	9
ROBERT GASSER	L	5
PAYTON TOLLE	L	8

[Dman]

Man if your Martin who doesn't hit many home runs.  Has to be pretty special to hit one over the green monster.  He's having a nice year so far.

[USAFChief]

On 5/23/2026 at 1:58 PM, ashbury said:

The basic statistical concept of "mean" (i.e. "average") predominates the rate stats on every site, but I don't know of good sources for the next-level concept of "variance," which is the issue that I've long felt plagues the Minnesota offense.  It would take massive research, I think, to track down evidence to support my contention that, to a greater extent than most good teams, we feast when the opponent on the mound is subpar but regularly starve when someone of major league talent is on the mound.  Maybe such a study would convince me that my supposition is wrong...

For much of the past century, since the deadball era, the magic number in MLB is 5. Score exactly 5 runs/game, you'll win more than lose. Score 4, you'll lose more than you win.

There's been a couple short exceptions. The late 90's, early 2000s saw that number reach 6 in several seasons.

Occasionally, particularly through the 60s and 70s, the number was 4.

I know this doesn't address the issue at hand--variability--but I've always found it interesting.

If you could somehow put up 810 runs, exactly 5 per game, you likely have one of the best regular season teams in baseball. 

[ashbury]

2 hours ago, USAFChief said:

For much of the past century, since the deadball era, the magic number in MLB is 5. Score exactly 5 runs/game, you'll win more than lose. Score 4, you'll lose more than you win.

There's been a couple short exceptions. The late 90's, early 2000s saw that number reach 6 in several seasons.

Occasionally, particularly through the 60s and 70s, the number was 4.

I know this doesn't address the issue at hand--variability--but I've always found it interesting.

If you could somehow put up 810 runs, exactly 5 per game, you likely have one of the best regular season teams in baseball. 

It's a valuable observation and there are many potential tangents to take in response.  I like to test theories by looking for exceptions, and for example this season the Nationals are on a pace to score 875 runs, yet (as of this morning) are below .500 because they give up runs at an even higher pace.  However they're merely the exception that proves the rule because yes, a typical pitching staff and the defense behind them will make 5 runs stand up more often than not.  The context of a given season matters, as you point out, so that this year and the past two years the average runs scored has been about 4.4 per game but as recently as 2023 it was 4.6 so then your 5 runs gets you less of an edge than right now - and 2019 was even more out of kilter at 4.8.  Long ago, Bill James popularized an empirical observation that every 10 additional runs scored during a season (and conversely every 10 runs saved) works out to about 1 additional win - a ratio that at first blush sounds kind of ludicrous since ten key runs here or there could net you several wins not just one, but the distribution of runs across a season doesn't work that neatly.  Those are some random thoughts, and I could go further and further down this rabbit hole, but my main reaction to your message is simply "yup."

Still, I want to steer this back to variability, and your 810-run rule of thumb makes for an entertaining thought experiment.  Last year two teams scored 810, the Yankees and the Dodgers, and everyone envies their win totals.  As you say, if you score 5 runs a game in today's environment, you set yourself up for a successful season.  Nobody scores exactly the same number each game, but if you did and it was 5, you'd do well.  However, if 810 for the season is the target, then there are other ways it could happen.  Suppose you scored 10 in half your games but got shut out (even when you go into extra innings, let's say) in the other half; you'd still score 810, but at best you'd finish .500, and since most teams, even good ones, give up 11+ runs a handful of times in a season, you'd be odds-on to finish something like 78-84.  Let's make the variability even wackier: suppose you score 15 runs in a third of your games and get shut out in two thirds.  That still brings you to 810 runs, and assuming your pitching/defense never completely blows up, you are destined for a 54-108 debacle of a season.

That's a thought experiment and can never happen - but neither does a constant 5 run output across an entire season either.  The idea in the above paragraph is to demonstrate that variability could be really, REALLY important - the greater the variability the greater the potential effect - but as far as I know it's not really studied at all.  And as I said earlier, someone more schooled in industrial-grade statistical analysis than myself would need to be called on to even begin the process of defining what to look for.  Because batters, pitchers, and managers intentionally do things for competitive reasons that skew the uniformity of the data available for us to work with - the manager chooses relievers differently when the score is 5-4 than when it's 8-1, as a trivial example, and pitchers pitch differently to Matt Wallner when the game is not close and/or there is no one on base, for another.