On Target: What happened to the Twins at home?

Target Field has not seen as many
Twins victories this season.

This was supposed to have happened last year.

The Twins had a long history of a "Dome field advantage." The Metrodome was one of the few turf fields in the American League; it had a unique roof; it had a unique right field "wall" -- there was no place quite like it, and the Twins habitually won games there on weird plays. Billy Martin wanted to blow it up in the early '80s, Ozzie Guillen cursed about it in the late '00s, and the Twins collected their wins and smiled.

Now: Most teams do better at home than on the road. The home team has last at-bats, so an advantage is built into the rules. The Twins usually had a bigger home field edge than normal because their arena was so odd. The Dome warped the game, and the Twins were more accustomed to those warps and, at times, even constructed to take advantage of them.

So when they moved to Target Field, a lot of people, included the aforementioned Mr. Guillen, expected them to struggle. No more high-hopping grounders. Actual caroms off the right-field wall. Weather to contend with.

And the 2010 Twins merely led the American League in home wins (53, one more than the Yankees). They were a pedestrian 41-40 on the road.

This year: The Twins are last in home wins, with 30. They enter Friday's play 30-42 at home, 29-42 on the road -- as even as they can get. No advantage to being at home for this team.

They've been lousy at the plate both home and road, with essentially the same OPS: .663 home, .662 road. They have a bit more power on the road, slightly higher batting averages and on-base percentages at home -- yet they're scored 4.17 runs per game on the road, 3.51 at home, more than half a run difference.

Part of that is having nine innings at the plate every road game, while some home games only require eight. Let's put it this way: The Twins on the road have scored 0.1098 runs per plate appearance. At home, 0.0972. That's a difference of 0.0126. Is that significant? The Twins average 37 plate appearances a game this year, and if we multiply 0.0126 by 37 we get .4662 -- or a bit less than a half run a game.That's less than the .66 runs differential dividing the runs by games played, but still significant.

How about the other half of the equation, run prevention? The Twins have allowed 355 runs in 72 home games, 4.93 runs per game; 348 runs in 71 road games, or 4.90 runs per game. Much more even -- this despite faring far worse on the road in all three slash stats (batting average, on-base percentage, slugging percentage). But again, the Twins have pitched almost 50 more innings at home.

Back to the plate appearance metric. The Twins at home have allowed 0.1255 runs per PA; on the road, 0.1311 -- a difference of .0056, less than half the difference on offense.

OK. So what? The 2011 Twins have a lousy home record for the same reason they have a lousy road record: They haven't played well in any facet of the game.

But it appears that the sharp decline in their home record is to be blamed more on their lack of runs in Target Field than on the pitching and defense.

On Target: Home/road splits, take four

Target Field in twilight

There was a distinct taste of autumn in the air Tuesday night at Target Field. With the heat of summer probably largely behind us, it's time to update the running project of measuring the effect of the new park on the games.

Hitters, home: 71 games played, 361 runs scored (5.08 per game); 42 home runs (.59 per game). Slash stats: .280/.360/.426

Hitters, road: 69 games played, 324 runs (4.70); 80 HRs (1.16 per game). Slash stats: .269/.332/.432

Pitchers, home: 71 games, 269 runs allowed (3.90 per game); 51 HR (.71 per game). Slash stats: .265/.311/.394

Pitchers, road: 69 games, 295 runs allowed (4.27); 72 HR (1.04 per game). Slash stats: .267/.318/.428

The consensus is that the new park depresses home runs (unless you're Jim Thome), and certainly the numbers so far support that. The Twins hitters are going long about twice as often on the road as at home.

But it's not really having any effect on runs scored. There are 8.98 runs scored per game at Target Field, and 8.97 runs scored per game in the Twins road games.

One season by itself doesn't necessarily provide an accurate depiction of how a park plays, and the 2010 season isn't complete anyway. But so far, Target Field appears favor batting average more than power.

On Target: Home-road splits, individuals

This month's check on on Target Field is playing is a bit different. Rather than big-picture team stats home and away, I'm going to look at seven of the most frequent Twins hitters and how they're faring. I'll use OPS and home runs, and add comments as I deem appropriate. (The Twins have played 50 games at home, 52 on the road). Sample size is, of course, inadequate to make any final judgments.

Michael Cuddyer

Home: OPS .830, HR 5. Road: OPS .753, HR 5

Comments: He's been the most publicly unhappy with the hitting background at Target Field — particularly about the trees — but he's hitting better at Target Field, both for average and for extra bases.

Orlando Hudson

Home: .822, 2. Road: .670, 2

Huge difference there. He hasn't done much of anything at bat on the road.

Jason Kubel

Home: .788, 6. Road: .745, 6

Pretty even.

Joe Mauer

Home: .793, 0. Road: .882, 6

His on-base percentage is slightly higher at home, but the power is much higher on the road.

Justin Morneau

Home: .914, 4. Road: 1.205, 14

His slugging percentage on the road is .757. Wow.

Delmon Young

Home: .882, 4. Road: .943, 10

On-base percentage is almost identical home and away. The difference is completely in power, and particularly in homers (no triples anywhere, and one more double at home than on the road).

On Target: Home-road splits, take 3

Summer has now officially arrived, which is a bit of a reminder — even though the Twins have had more than 1,100 plate appearances in Target Field, it's far too soon to declare that we know how the park plays.

Too soon, and yet the impression has been made: The new park is seen as a tough home run park.

Here's the reality of the numbers so far:

Hitters, home: The Twins have played 36 games at Target Field, scoring 180 runs (5.00 runs per game). They've hit 19 home runs at home (.53 per game) and have slash stats of .286/.369/.416

Hitters, road: The Twins have scored 149 runs in 33 road games (4.52 R/G), hitting 42 home runs (1.27). Slash stats: .258/.326/.422

Pitchers, home: 124 runs allowed (3.44); 31 homers (.86); slash stats .247/.291/.390

Pitchers, road: 150 runs (4.55); 36 homers (1.09); .285/.331/.448

The Twins are being out-homered home and road, but the disparity has been much greater at home.

On Target: Home and road splits, take 2

(Updated @ 8:50 a.m. Thursday)

On Tuesday, Justin Morneau crushed a ball just to the left of straight-away center field. It barely reached the warning track. Just a long out.

On Wednesday, Michael Cuddyer mashed a ball to left center — and Alex Rios made a very impressive over-the-fence grab (photo right).

Two long balls, two outs, and two more pieces of anecdotal evidence that Target Field plays long to center and the gaps.

The validity of that belief has yet to be fully established. We haven't seen summer yet.

Here are the Twins home/road splits — and again, it's too early to attach any real importance to these figures:

Home: The Twins have played 18 home games, scoring 88 runs (4.89 per game). They've hit 10 homers (.56 per game), slash stats .277/.362/.406.

They've allowed 63 runs (3.50), allowing 15 homers (.83), slash stats .252/.296/.393.

Road: The Twins have played 16 road games. They've scored 81 runs (5.06 per game), hit 22 homers (1.38), slash stats .276/.355/.452.

They've allowed 60 runs (3.75), 11 homers (.69), slash stats .270/.329/.406.

On Target: Home and road splits, take 1

The Twins have played 16 games — about one-tenth of the schedule. Which means that, even with the one-sided loss Thursday — really the first time the Twins were out of it — they're still on a 110-win pace.

They aren't that good — very few teams go 110-52 — but it's a promising start anyway.

So it seems an appropriate time to test the home/road splits, to see how Target Field is playing. Not that these numbers should be regarded as the basis for conclusion; we've had all of seven road games, nine home games. It's just a quick comparison to get our bearings.

Home: Twins have scored 49 runs (5.44 per game); hit 6 homers (.67 homers per game); slash stats .277/.280/.405. (Just to illustrate how quickly these can change this early in the year, going into Thursday the slash stats were .290/.394/.427.)

The visitors have scored 35 runs (3.89 per game); hit 8 homers (.89 per game); slash stats .261/.307/.425

Road: Twins have scored 32 runs (4.57 per game); hit 10 homers (1.43 per game); slash stats .248/.331/.424

The home teams have scored 21 runs in 7 games (3.00); hit 7 homers (1 per game); slash stats .250/.305/.381

We'll look again after May 12. The Twins will have had a nine-game road trip (starting today; Kansas City, Detroit, Cleveland) followed by a nine-game homestand (Detroit, Baltimore, White Sox).