Trevor Larnach, or: When Disrupting the Routine is a Good Thing

After 22 games, the Minnesota Twins have six batters with enough plate appearances to qualify for the batting title. Catcher Ryan Jeffers and fourth outfielder Austin Martin are just off that pace, with 65 and 62 plate appearances, respectively. Just below those eight players, there's a tier of three guys who have been part-timers this season, with between 40 and 50 plate appearances despite being active all year. For Kody Clemens and Tristan Gray, that's to be expected; these are the roles they're meant to play. For Trevor Larnach, though, 47 trips to the plate in 22 healthy games reflects the strangeness of the team's early schedule.

Through a series of matchup coincidences, the Twins have faced left-handed starting pitchers 13 times in their 22 games. Larnach, a lefty batter who's had little luck against southpaws during his career, has therefore started only half of the 22. He's been in there all nine times against righties, but only twice in the 13 games against lefties—and then, partially because of injuries to other players.

Normally, players hate having the routine of playing every day disrupted. Only good players get the privilege of assuming they'll be in the lineup for each game, and those clinging to the fringes of the majors are happy to fill in wherever and whenever they're needed, but Larnach has long been able to plan on playing at least five times a week, at least when he's been healthy enough to do so. This pattern of (dis)use is extremely unfamiliar to him, and it's begotten a very weird version of Larnach so far in 2026—but weird in a good way.

Larnach is batting .265/.468/.412. In his 47 trips to the plate, he's drawn an eye-popping 13 walks, to go with three extra-base hits and just seven strikeouts. He's still whiffing at a catastrophic rate against everything but fastballs, and by now, fans know better than to expect anything else. Against fastballs, though, he's only whiffed once, and more importantly, he's been extremely patient. His swing rate was around 41% in both 2022 and 2023. It rose to 44% or so in 2024 and 2025. So far this season, he's swung at 33.8% of the pitches he's seen. Thence come all those walks—though also lots of questions.

Generally, that low a swing rate isn't viable in the big leagues. That goes double for someone who swings and misses as much as Larnach does against anything offspeed or breaking. It's a recipe for too many strikeouts, even if it does come with a fair number of walks. It's also, certainly, not what Larnach is trying to do.

The Twins are a slightly more patient team than they were last year. New hitting coach Keith Beauregard has them trying to wait for the right pitch a bit more. The difference isn't huge, though, and no one is telling Larnach to swing barely a third of the time. He's just not in enough of a rhythm to swing any more often. He can't get off his 'A' swing consistently enough to justify swinging at all, given not only the plan he's taking to the plate but the years of practice and programming that have gotten him this far. It doesn't help that, after being strictly a platoon guy in 2023 and 2024 and getting only partial exposure to lefties last year, he's seen them in 11 of his 47 trips so far this season. 

In this small sample, though, Larnach has benefited from being forced to behave bizarrely at the plate. Swinging much, much less is working for him, not only because he's not getting himself out, but because the strike zone is smaller this year and pitchers aren't throwing as many strikes. A more patient approach might suit him, after all. This level of selectivity will probably never profit such a whiff-prone slugger, but unless and until Larnach can get his swing ranged and start producing the power he only intermittently accessed last year, waiting hurlers out is a good plan. He might have tried a bit more of this, no matter what. Because he's not playing especially regularly and is seeing some tough matchups, though, he's had to lean into it—and the results are as peculiar as this stretch of lefties on the schedule was.