Twins aren’t striking out as much, but they are hitting a lot of ‘at-em’ balls

Only two seasons removed from striking out more times than any major league team in history, the Twins are no longer baseball’s whiff kings.

The Twins sit precisely in the middle of the game’s strikeout statistics this season, and even with a difficult weekend at Atlanta — 23 strikeouts Saturday and Sunday, their largest two-game total thus far — their 183 K’s in 2025 project to more than 300 fewer over the entire year than their historic 1,654-whiff season in 2023.

“We haven’t really had a strikeout problem this year,” manager Rocco Baldelli said, with evident relief. “Yes, we struck out a little more than normal [against the Braves], but we faced a Cy Young guy [Chris Sale on Saturday], and the Braves relievers all have good stuff. But it’s not a season-long issue for us.”

Wonderful. Problem solved, or at least neutered. The offense must be clicking now, right?

Ooof. Now comes the bad news.

The Twins are indeed putting the ball in play more than in recent years — and they are getting less out of it than ever before. As they open a six-game homestead on Tuesday, the Twins carry a .259 batting average on balls in play. Over a full season, that would be the worst such success rate in the team’s 65-year history — worse than during the 1960s, when pitchers still had to hit.

There are plenty of reasons for the lull, of course, and Michael Harris II’s weekend — the Atlanta center fielder robbed the Twins of a half-dozen extra-base hits with running catches on the warning track — brings a prominent one to mind.

“Defense has something to do with it. Teams utilize all the data about where batters hit the ball, and they’re making more plays on hard-hit balls,” said Matt Borgschulte, in his first season as Twins hitting coach.

“Pitching is really good as well, so it’s a combination. Pitchers keep getting better at manipulating grips and shapes to produce more weak contact. And what you’re seeing a lot now is, guys have multiple fastballs. Fastball sinker, fastball cutter, fastballs that are breaking too, and that’s where so much of the weak contact comes.”

Actually, the Twins hit the ball hard on 40.7% of their at-bats, according to MLB’s StatCast measurements, a little better than average among MLB teams. That they are getting so little out of it, “that makes the mental challenge even tougher,” Borgschulte said. “When you feel like your process is good and the results aren’t showing up the way you want them to — that’s the continual test of hitting: It’s a mental grind as well as physical.”

Carlos Correa agreed. “We’re hitting a lot of balls at people, for sure,” said the shortstop, whose own .224 batting average on balls in play — BABIP for short — is a career-low. “It’s a little bit of needing more solid contact, and a little bit of luck. Sometimes a lot of luck, I’d say.”

Typically, the league BABIP is about .300, and no major league team has had an average below .270 for a full 162-game season since Toronto’s .269 in 2010. Last year through 22 games, the Twins had an almost-identical BABIP of .260; they finished the season at .289.

There’s one more factor: No team in the game is worse at hitting lefthanded pitching. That’s a problem that hasn’t exactly taken the team by surprise; the Twins front office tried to add more righthanded hitting in the offseason, and the team hasn’t had Royce Lewis in the lineup yet this year.

Nobody expected it to be this bad, though. The Twins have only 21 hits off lefthanders, a .141 average that is worst in the majors by more than 40 points. Harrison Bader is 2-for-16, Edouard Julien 1-for-10 and Trevor Larnach (in 11 at-bats), Christian Vázquez (10) and Ryan Jeffers (nine) are hitless against lefties.

Though he has only five at-bats, lefthanded hitter Matt Wallner, currently sidelined by a hamstring injury, is tied for the Twins lead in hits vs. lefthanders with three.

“It’s just about getting your pitch and making your swing. When I do that consistently, the balls I put in play fall for more hits,” said Bader, who has in the past been an above-average hitter (.763 career OPS) against lefthanders. “When I expand the zone, maybe swing a little too hard sometimes, I wind up striking out more.”

Fortunately for the Twins, they figure to face no experienced lefthanded starter against the Chicago White Sox this week. Former Twins lefty Martín Perez, who didn’t give up a hit in six innings against the Twins on March 31, is on the 60-day injured list because of elbow inflammation.

Still, it’s clear the Twins have plenty of issues at the plate to address.

“You can only focus on the things you have control over. That’s it. You’re not going to get me saying we’ve just been unlucky and it will even out. You’re not going to hear me say that,” Baldelli said. “You hit the ball consistently on the barrel, you hit it hard, you hit line drives, you take pitches out of the zone and you get on base, you will find ways to score runs. Those are the things that we can do and focus on and handle. That’s how you handle your business.”

The Twins have changed starting times of two weekend games against the Los Angeles Angels to avoid traffic issues with the Timberwolves, moving them both up 30 minutes. Friday’s game at Target Field will start at 6:40 p.m. (the Wolves play at 8:30 p.m.) and Sunday’s game will begin at 12:40 p.m. (the Wolves play at 2:30 p.m.).