Friday, April 5, 2019

Small sample size theater

The Twins have won four of five in the young season. They have done so by hitting one (1) homer.

There are extenuating circumstances to that power drought. The Cleveland starters -- you may have heard this already -- are pretty darn good. Kansas City's starters aren't, but Kaufmann Stadium might be the least homer friendly in the majors. And -- again, you may have heard this already -- the weather has been rather chilly the past week.

So the conditions have not been favorable for home runs. But just one in five games? I would not have believed that this lineup could produce enough runs to win four of five with that few homers.

But ... Minnesota is second in the American League in doubles (17, one behind Seattle in three fewer games), and stood third in slugging percentage according to Baseball Reference in the predawn hours (not sure when the stats are updated from last night).

One week of sporadic play does not suffice to prove or disprove a theory, of course. But so far my fear that the Twins would be overly reliant on solo homers has been mistaken.

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