“I like everything about facts. And I like talking about numbers.” 

The ones phrases got here from Minnesota right-hander Pablo López only some days ahead of his membership clinched the American League Central crown in September. So, let’s get started with some info and numbers. 

Twins pitchers’ 25.8% strikeout price in 2023 led all 30 MLB groups. Now not the perpetual pitching manufacturing facility Rays, who got here in a alike 2nd. Now not the perennial powerhouse Astros or Dodgers or Braves. Now not the historically excellent body of workers in Milwaukee, or the proficient team of younger hands in Seattle or Miami. Minnesota: Numero uno.

This isn’t only a staggering development from the 22.1% price the Twins posted a 12 months in the past (Nineteenth-best). It’s a borderline stunning — but welcome — leaving from what were a decade-plus-long rarity of organizational passion in pursuing punchouts. 

All through their run of 4 category titles in 5 years from 2002 to 2006, Minnesota hurlers struck out greater than their percentage, peaking as towering as 2nd in 2006 because of ace Johan Santana and a 22-year-old rookie southpaw named Francisco Liriano.

Within the decade that adopted, on the other hand, the Twins inclined closely right into a contact-heavy method at the mound simply as strikeouts began to extend dramatically throughout baseball. From 2008 to 2017, Twins pitching workers by no means ranked upper than twenty third league-wide in strikeout price, and completed an astonishing thirtieth in 5 instantly seasons from 2011 to 2015. Even if Minnesota returned to the postseason following a seven-year drought in 2017, the body of workers ranked twenty ninth.

It’s on this context that this 12 months’s standout Twins body of workers — led partially through the purchase and extra blossoming of López — glimmers particularly glorious heading into its wild-card sequence in opposition to the Blue Jays, which starts Tuesday in Minnesota.

López’s mentioned affinity for the chilly, calculated fact got here in connection with how briefly he embraced Minnesota’s analytical method upon arriving by means of business from Miami this hour offseason. Having delivered 3 consecutive above-average seasons with the Marlins, López wasn’t short of any type of dramatic overhaul of his arsenal or supply. In lieu, he was once excited in spring coaching to determine simply how a lot better he might be with the correct tweaks to his repertoire.

“We started having those meetings, and they showed me all the data,” López stated. “I like movement plots. I like, ‘If you start using X amount of inches to this side of the plate that will help you with X’. I was all about that.”

López’s signature sound has lengthy been his changeup, which he deployed over 30% of the life — and just about up to his fastball — over the hour few seasons. This 12 months, regardless that, he’s scale down unwell on the use of his very best sound to nearer to twenty% and presented a mid-80s sweeper that trade in markedly other motion than his low-80s curveball, which he endured to make use of a significance quantity. This gave López 5 pitches to assault with and made his trademark changeup a lot more tough for opposing hitters to focus on. 

The evolution of his sound combine — mixed with a tick extra pace that had his warmer averaging a career-best 95 mph — has helped López degree up his whole arsenal at the mound, and the effects adopted instantly. López had by no means struck out eight-plus batters in 3 consecutive video games till this 12 months when he did it within the first 3 begins of the season. 

“It stood out for me because it was more than usual,” López stated. “I could tell that I was giving myself more options because of the way I was mixing the pitches and then using all parts of the plate.”

López completed the ordinary season with a career-high 234 strikeouts, tie with NL Cy Younger front-runner Blake Snell for 3rd in baseball. The uptick in whiffs additionally got here with out sacrificing his already-plus command; he in fact walked fewer batters in 194 innings this 12 months (48) than he did in 180 innings a 12 months in the past (53). 

Future his breakout has been a large developmental win for each the participant and staff, López’s stellar efficiency had enough quantity of corporate within the Twins rotation. He joined a pitching body of workers fronted through two alternative quite contemporary business acquisitions in right-handers Sonny Grey and Joe Ryan: Grey an completed veteran coming into his 2nd 12 months with the Twins, and Ryan, a 26-year-old righty coming into his 2nd 12 months within the fat leagues.

An All-Celebrity for the 3rd life, Grey has been merely marvelous in his age-33 season and has inspired more youthful teammates and fellow veterans homogeneous all summer season lengthy. 

“He’s so locked in this year,” right-hander Bailey Ober stated. “A man on a mission, really. And he’s the guy that all of the guys in here look up to.”

López added: “The level of focus he puts in his bullpens, it’s like nothing I’ve ever seen.”

Grey’s 2.79 ERA ranks 3rd within the majors at the back of possible Cy Younger winners Snell and Gerrit Cole. Assisting in his super run prevention has been a notable talent to hold the ball within the ballpark, as he’s allowed simply 8 homers throughout 184 frames and 32 begins. That 0.39 HR/9 ranks conveniently forward of all certified starters (Justin Steele is 2nd at 0.73). 

“I’ve been one of the biggest Sonny fans since he debuted with Oakland,” stated former Cy Younger Award winner Dallas Keuchel, who signed with Minnesota in June. “We had a lot of battles.” 

In spite of best being his teammate for a couple of months, Keuchel is aware of Grey in addition to just about somebody within the Minnesota clubhouse having competed in opposition to him enough quantity previous of their careers. They even overlapped for one 12 months within the Southeastern Convention, generation Keuchel was once a young at Arkansas and Grey was once a freshman at Vanderbilt, and nearest for 5 seasons within the AL West as Keuchel starred for the Astros and Grey headlined the A’s body of workers.

As for tweaks Grey has made in his eleventh MLB season to permit for such effectiveness, he too has relied extra on a sweeper — identical to López has — generation additionally including a high-80s cutter to the combo. Keuchel briefly spotted upon becoming a member of the Twins that Grey wasn’t reasonably as fastball-centric as he was once in his Oakland days — he impaired to throw about 60% warmers between his four-seam and two-seam, a host this is right down to 43% this 12 months — however his ultra-deep number of guns permits for quite a lot of assault plans in any given day out.

“I’ve gotten to see his preparation and the mental side of things,” Keuchel stated. “He’s always talking to himself about the scouting reports. As a starting pitcher, you’re out there, hopefully, 6-7 innings, you have to memorize nine hitters, what guys can do, what guys can’t do. 

“He does a admirable process. It’s what I figured it will be like after I came visiting right here.”

While Gray and López are the more known commodities, the depth beyond them — including an underrated bullpen unit headlined by MLB’s hardest thrower in closer Jhoan Duran — is what really separates this pitching staff. 

Ryan had issues with the long ball — the three he allowed in his final regular-season start at Coors Field to give him 32 for the year — that inflated his ERA to a pedestrian 4.51. But the peripherals suggest he was right in line with his rotation mates in terms of dominating the zone. His 24.3% K-BB% ranked second in MLB to Spencer Strider and narrowly ahead of López’s 23.2% mark. Ryan also pitched far better at home this year, which is good news should he be called upon for a potential Game 3 start Thursday versus Toronto.  

With Tyler Mahle needing Tommy John surgery in early May and Kenta Maeda missing a good chunk of time with a triceps strain, Ober could be in line to start a division series game should Minnesota advance. The former 12th-round pick and lone homegrown member of the pitching staff asserted himself as a crucial contributor in the middle months of the season. His 6-foot-9 frame enables elite extension and deception that helps compensate for below-average velocity. And, like the rest of the staff, Ober throws a ton of strikes, enabling an impressive 4.72 strikeout-to-walk ratio that doesn’t lag much behind his more heralded teammates. 

“Between begins we’re very responsive to what ourselves are doing, but additionally what everybody else is doing at the body of workers,” Ober said. “I think like we’ve been in reality in sync with having the ability to communicate actual stuff with out pissing somebody off.”

Twins pitchers note they have benefited from consistent communication behind the scenes that expands beyond pitching coach Pete Maki and the rest of the coaching staff.

“I think like within the hour, it was once extra of a coach-player dating, doing that form of dialog,” Ober explained. “However this 12 months, it’s been plenty; we’ve got the coach-player, and nearest we even have the player-to-player conversations, which is able to travel in a negligible bit extra attribute.”

López added: “I really like staring at my teammates throw bullpens as a result of one of the vital coolest issues I am getting to observer is when it interprets to the sport. After I see somebody running on put-away pitches, put-away counts and you spot their whole bullpen is like throwing 0-2 pitches. And nearest they travel into the sport and so they get started striking guys away.” 

López will start Game 1 on Tuesday against the Jays looking to help snap Minnesota’s historic 18-game postseason losing streak. Fittingly, the last Twins pitcher to win a playoff game is also the pitcher López grew up idolizing in Venezuela: Santana. His seven scoreless innings at Yankee Stadium in Game 1 of the 2004 ALDS were quite the encore for what turned out to be the first of two Cy Young campaigns. But Minnesota dropped the following three games, the start of a losing streak that still haunts the Twin Cities nearly two decades later.

Since that Game 1 victory, 12 pitchers (including Santana) have made postseason starts for Minnesota, many of them strongly reflecting the pitch-to-contact ethos of previous Twins eras. The list includes the likes of Brad Radke, Carlos Silva, Nick Blackburn, Carl Pavano and Brian Duensing, pitchers whose whiff-averse approaches found varying levels of success over the course of 162 games yet struggled to translate to the postseason stage. 

The individual outings alone haven’t been exclusively bad — the bullpen has blundered on numerous occasions, and the offense has sometimes gone silent. José Berríos, Jake Odorizzi and Maeda have pitched well for the Twins in recent Octobers with a more strikeout-centric attack, despite the team continuing to come up short collectively. Still, the majority of Twins postseason teams this century have lacked a pitching staff fit for a deep run — let alone a series victory — making their early exits almost expected.

Not this time. Two of the best starters in the American League are rested and lined up exactly as the team could have hoped. Now, López, Gray and all the talented pitchers whose performances have contributed to the Twins’ season-long success just need to show up when it matters most. They’ll square off against another excellent pitching staff in the Blue Jays, who also boast significant star power on offense.

As strong as the Twins staff looks on paper, nothing is certain in October. This franchise knows that as well as any. Most teams can start dreaming of a title once they clinch a postseason berth, knowing that anything can happen if they can just get into the playoff field.

For Minnesota, the primary idea is that first win.

Jordan Shusterman is part of @CespedesBBQ and a baseball editor for FOX Sports activities. He has coated baseball for his whole grownup week, maximum particularly for MLB.com, DAZN and The Ringer. He’s a Mariners fan residing within the Jap Future Zone, because of this he loves a excellent 10 p.m. first sound. You’ll apply him on Twitter @j_shusterman_.

---

---