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It's a common trope that pitching wins in the MLB playoffs. (Much like in football, defense wins champions.)
The truth is that pitching helps, of course, but it's only half the battle. You've got to score runs to have a chance, as the Twins have learned the hard way numerous times – including their most recent postseason trip, in which they scored one run in each of their two losses against Houston.
The Twins have reason to feel good about their playoff offense this year, especially if they can get Carlos Correa and Royce Lewis back. They've got even more reason to feel good about their pitching, thanks to a four-deep stable of high-quality starters who've all pitched at an All-Star level when healthy.
Much has rightfully been made of the leading duo, Pablo López and Sonny Gray, who were on actual All-Stars in July and have both been pitching like bona fide aces ever since. No matter what stat or metric you want to use, these two have both been among the league's best starting pitchers this season. For example, Gray leads the AL in fWAR and López ranks sixth. Both are among the top 10 in ERA.
These are elite, ace-caliber pitchers, and whichever team faces the Twins will need to win a game started by at least one of them. A tall order.
There are some other playoff teams with impressive two-headed monsters in the rotation, though. Seattle has Luis Castillo and George Kirby. Toronto has Kevin Gausman and José Berríos.
What really differentiates the Twins is their rotation prowess beyond their top two. Joe Ryan and Kenta Maeda might look on the surface like fairly standard No. 3 and No. 4 starter types on a playoff team, based on their aggregate numbers. However, I think we can fairly say their aggregate numbers do not tell the full story.
On the season, Ryan is 11-10 with a 4.31 ERA in 28 starts. Nothing special, pretty much the epitome of an average starter.
However, as fans who've been following the team all year know, Ryan revealed in early August that he'd been pitching through a groin injury, which he says first flared up weeks earlier ahead of a (brutal) start in Atlanta. He went on the injured list for about three weeks and returned near the end of August.
Prior to the Atlanta start, Ryan was 8-4 with a 2.98 ERA and eight homers allowed in 15 starts. Since returning from the IL, he's 2-2 with a 3.81 ERA and four homers allowed in six starts. In between, while ostensibly being bothered by the injury, he was 1-4 with an 8.63 ERA and 17 home runs allowed in seven starts.
Now I recognize it is often convenient for players to pin their struggles on a supposed injury in hindsight. But here, the explanation really checks out. Ryan was a radically different pitcher during the time he admittedly hid a physical issue from the team, and it shows clearly in the numbers. The home run totals are most conspicuous; Ryan gave up multiple homers five times during that seven-game span, and has done so only twice in his other 21 starts.
If the real Joe Ryan is the one we saw during his 21 healthy starts – during which he posted a 3.16 ERA, 10.1 K/9 and 1.7 BB/9 with 12 home runs allowed in 124 innings – that's a legitimate frontline starter, and easily the best No. 3 any team could hope to boast this October, statistically.
Despite all this, Ryan has hardly been viewed as a lock as Minnesota's third playoff starter ... because Maeda has been making such a strong case.
Maeda was, of course, Minnesota's Game 1 starter last time they reached the playoffs, fresh off a Cy Young runner-up season. He came through brilliantly on that occasion, tossing five shutout innings against the Astros.
It's been a long road since then. Maeda battled elbow soreness in 2021, underwent Tommy John surgery, missed all of 2022, and returned this year with a rough landing in April. Coming off an 18-month hiatus, Maeda's arm clearly wasn't quite ready for the rigors of live action. The Twins shut him down for a few weeks, brought him back in late June, and he's been a different pitcher ever since.
In 16 starts since coming off the IL, Maeda is 6-3 with a 3.39 ERA, 10.4 K/9 and 2.4 BB/9. Again, that's frontline starter material, and not dissimilar to the type of performance we saw from the veteran right-hander in 2020. Any other year in history the Twins would be thrilled to start a guy like this in almost any playoff game – now the rotation is so strong one-through-three that Maeda is being prepped as a reliever, ready to provide multiple quality innings on call. (At least in the first round.)
It's easy to feel confident in him for that role, given that Maeda has fulfilled it effectively in several postseasons past with the Dodgers. But it'd also be easy to feel confident in him as a third or fourth starter, and the Twins might need Maeda in that capacity if they advance.
That's what is really exciting about the opportunity in front of this team. The Twins have a favorable situation in the ALWC round, where they can deploy those four – in front of a bullpen that's growing more formidable through season-ending additions – across three games at home. Once you get past the first round (novel concept, I know), Minnesota's rotation depth becomes a much more decisive competitive edge. If they want to, they can even add Bailey Ober, whose 3.66 ERA in 132 innings would make him a clear-cut No. 3 or even No. 2 starter on most playoff staffs.
Starting pitching is without question the signature strength that propelled Minnesota to the playoffs this year, leading the American League in fWAR and ranking second in ERA. This strength offers the best reason to think they can not only snap their losing streak but make a fairly deep run.
You just don't find playoff teams with this many starting pitching weapons very often. As the playoffs arrive, they're all clicking.
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- DocBauer, mikelink45, Fatbat and 2 others
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