Week in Review: Back with a Vengeance

Weekly Snapshot: Thurs, 3/30 through Sun, 4/2
***
Record Last Week: 3-0 (Overall: 3-0)
Run Differential Last Week: +7 (Overall: +7)
Standing: 1st Place in AL Central (1.0 GA)

Last Week's Game Results:

Game 1 | MIN 2, KC 0: López, Bullpen Lead Way in Opening Day Shutout
Game 2 | MIN 2, KC 0: Twins Again Hold Royals Scoreless, Take Series
Game 3 | MIN 7, KC 4: Bats Awaken to Seal Season-Opening Sweep

NEWS & NOTES

First, an introduction to the column for those who might be unfamiliar. Twins Daily's "Week in Review" publishes every Sunday night throughout the season with a recap of key highlights, lowlights, and trending narratives from the past seven days.

The purpose behind this weekly feature is twofold:

1. Helping those fans who aren't able to closely follow the team on a daily basis stay up-to-speed on the key beats of the season.
2. Providing a blend of macro and micro analysis as things play out. Sure, one week's worth of games aren't THAT significant in the grand scheme ... but it's a much more significant sample than one single game.

We open each edition with this, the News & Notes section, covering any roster moves or key developments. (Last year, it was usually a laundry list of injury updates.) From there, we move onto the good, the bad, and the most buzzworthy items from the past week, closing with a look forward to the next. If there's anything else you'd like to see added to these columns that could make them more valuable, please let me know in the comments! 

With all that out of the way, let's get on to the biggest stories from a terrific opening series in Kansas City.

HIGHLIGHTS

Last year, the Twins were built as a team that hoped to excel on offense while patching together enough pitching to contend. That didn't work out so well in the end. This year, they've reversed their makeup, featuring a deep and accomplished pool of pitchers whose impact can hopefully offset any deficiencies from a lineup plagued by injury concerns.

So far, so good.

The Twins opened their season with back-to-back shutouts, a rare feat in the majors and an unprecedented one for this franchise. While facing an admittedly sub-par Royals lineup, Minnesota pitchers were in control throughout the series, holding KC to four total runs on 12 hits in the three games.

Newcomer Pablo López set the tone in Thursday's season opener, flashing dominant stuff on the way to 5 ⅓ scoreless innings with eight strikeouts and just two hits allowed. His fastball was popping at 95-96 MPH regularly, while his trademark changeup and new "sweeper" had hitters constantly whiffing.

In this fairly short outing, the right-hander posted strikeout (8) and swinging strike (17) totals that would've both ranked among the top five in his 32 starts for Miami last year. Extremely encouraging stuff.

Fresh off challenging his rotation-mates to raise the team's rotation standard after a 2022 season defined by the five-and-fly model, Sonny Gray naturally got through only five innings on Saturday before getting a deserved hook. He kept the Royals off the board in what could hardly be described as sharp in the outing. Battling command in the cool early-season conditions, Gray issued four walks with only one strikeout, but to his credit managed to navigate out of trouble repeatedly. 

I like the way Rocco Baldelli summarized the performance: "That outing does not go well for most guys who feel probably the way Sonny felt today out on the mound, but he did something that great starting pitchers do, and he found ways to go out there and not give up any runs."

It's the value of having experienced, crafty, capable veteran starters who've been around the block. The Twins now have a rotation chock full of them, so hopefully they'll see this benefit manifest time and time again during the season.

Joe Ryan isn't quite in the "crafty veteran" category yet, entering his second full season, but he's pretty clearly established himself as a quality big-league starter and a flat-out dominator of the Royals. After spinning six innings of one-run ball on Sunday, he's now 5-0 with a 1.20 ERA in five starts against Kansas City.

The bullpen was also mostly excellent in this first series, holding the Royals to three runs in 10 ⅔ innings with all relievers other than Cole Sands appearing. The Twins'  dual-closer setup already came in handy when Jhoan Durán, who closed out the opener on Thursday, was unavailable Saturday due to "sleeping weirdly" and Jorge López handled the two-run save. 

López pitched in all three games, threw strikes, and resembled his first-half form from last year, piling up strikeouts and grounders. A very positive sign.

Offensively, there weren't a ton of highlights in a fairly quiet opening series, but Byron Buxton was a notable exception. Limited to DH duties to open the year, Buxton looked like a fine fit for the part, batting third and smashing line drives all over the field. He tripled in the first game, doubled in the second, and put his speed to work, scoring three of the Twins' four runs in their first two games.

A joy to watch, as always. The Twins need to find a way to keep him on the field.

LOWLIGHTS

Opening the season against an unimposing Royals team with three middling righty starters on the mound, Minnesota's quartet of key left-handed bats – all facing some level of "prove-it year" – had an opportunity to make noise out of the gates. 

While Trevor Larnach looked viable in the cleanup spot (5-for-11 with two RBIs and two runs scored), and Joey Gallo shook off his slow start with a monster game on Sunday (two homers and a double), it wasn't a roundly strong showing from this group.

Max Kepler, reinstalled in the leadoff spot in an apparent effort to boost his confidence (or maybe more due to a lack of appealing alternatives), is off to a slow start in the shift reduction era. He went 0-for-13 in Kansas City, offering up a familiar mix of choppers and pop-ups. (In fairness, also a couple of well-struck drives that found gloves.)

Starting all three games at second base in place of Jorge Polanco, Nick Gordon went 0-for-6, putting the ball in play each time up but failing to find grass. Gordon batted sixth in Baldelli's surprisingly rigid lineups, and got plenty of opportunities to hit with RISP but came up empty each time, leaving the bases loaded in the first inning of both Thursday's and Saturday's games.

He would've gotten another chance on Sunday, when Gordon was due up with the bases juiced and two outs in the fifth, but Baldelli countered Kansas City's lefty reliever move by pinch-hitting Kyle Farmer, who flew out. 

The Twins have positioned themselves well with enough bench weapons to make their offense essentially matchup-proof, but it's incumbent upon guys like Gordon and Farmer to step up in those favorable spots. There's no need to worry much much yet, but these missed opportunities contributed to a series that saw the Twins strand 27 baserunners in 27 innings.

Disturbingly reminiscent to last year.

TRENDING STORYLINE

Neither Polanco nor Alex Kirilloff were quite ready for the start of the season, although it didn't seem in spring training like either one was THAT far off – both were getting action in minor-league games by the end of camp, at least. Now that we're underway, and the offense is lagging a bit out of the gates, the question becomes: How soon might we realistically expect to see one or both help the Twins?

An April debut feels unlikely for either, although perhaps a bit more plausible for Polanco, who seems a little closer. The idea of those two (along with Royce Lewis and other top prospects) joining the fold as mid-season reinforcements for a winning team is exciting, but the Twins will face an uphill battle in getting themselves to that point with a rugged early schedule.. 

Ten of their next 19 games come against the Astros and Yankees. 

LOOKING AHEAD

The first full week of action lies ahead, with the Twins first heading to Miami for a reunion with old friend Luis Arraez (and extremely tough pitching matchup on Tuesday), then coming to Target Field for their home-opening series against the defending champs.

Of note: we'll get our first look at Baldelli's lineup against a left-handed starter on Wednesday. 

MONDAY, 4/3: TWINS @ MARLINS – RHP Tyler Mahle v. RHP Johnny Cueto
TUESDAY, 4/4: TWINS @ MARLINS – RHP Kenta Maeda v. RHP Sandy Alcantara
WEDNESDAY, 4/5: TWINS @ MARLINS – RHP Pablo Lopez v. LHP Jesus Luzardo
THURSDAY, 4/6: ASTROS @ TWINS – RHP Jose Urquidy v. RHP Sonny Gray
SATURDAY, 4/8: ASTROS @ TWINS – RHP Luis Garcia v. RHP Joe Ryan
SUNDAY, 4/9: ASTROS @ TWINS – RHP Hunter Brown v. RHP Tyler Mahle