{"id":575977,"date":"2026-04-10T13:39:11","date_gmt":"2026-04-10T13:39:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/575977\/"},"modified":"2026-04-10T13:39:11","modified_gmt":"2026-04-10T13:39:11","slug":"have-the-twins-really-stunk-against-lhp-the-past-decade","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/575977\/","title":{"rendered":"Have the Twins really stunk against LHP the past decade?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Quoting from the Book of Ben<\/a>, chapter & verse:<\/p>\n

\u201cFor seemingly the 10th season in a row, the Twins simply can\u2019t manage to string together any offense against left-handed starting pitchers\u201d<\/p>\n

Is this actually true? Well, let\u2019s take a look (I\u2019m including all lefties here\u2014SP & RP alike). In 2016-2018, the Twins were about league average against LHP\u2026<\/p>\n

Advertisement<\/p>\n

2016: 103 OPS+ overall vs LHP; 87 OPS+ LHB vs LHP<\/p>\n

2017: 100 OPS+ overall vs LHP; 96 OPS+ LHB vs LHP<\/p>\n

2018: 94 OPS+ overall vs LHP; 110 OPS+ LHB vs LHP<\/p>\n

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In the Bomba Squad season of 2019, Twins\u2019 bats battered a 125 OPS+ vs LHP and 109 OPS+ LHB vs LHP.<\/p>\n

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Somewhat inexplicably, those numbers plummeted in the pandemic-plagued<\/a> 2020: 80 OPS+ vs LHP; 50 OPS+ LHB vs LHP<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Things stabilized a bit in 2021-2023 (if still very poor lefty-on-lefty)\u2026<\/p>\n

2021: 97 OPS+ vs LHP; 72 OPS+ LHB vs LHP<\/p>\n

2022: 96 OPS+ vs LHP; 93 OPS+ LHB vs LHP<\/p>\n

2023<\/a>: 96 OPS+ vs LHP; 70 OPS+ LHB vs LHP<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

The past two campaigns? Even better versus southpaws, if that can possibly be believed\u2026<\/p>\n

2024: 105 OPS+ vs LHP; 89 OPS+ LHB vs LHP<\/p>\n

2025: 101 OPS+ vs LHP; 84 OPS+ LHB vs LHP<\/p>\n

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What to learn from all this? Well, primarily that MN\u2019s supposed feebleness against port-siders has largely been over-emphasized\u2014more in-the-moment frustration than analytical truth. I\u2019m just as surprised as anyone, as I too would have subscribed to Ben\u2019s old-time religion on this topic.<\/p>\n

Advertisement<\/p>\n

This year\u2019s extremely small-sample-size breakdown so far bears out\u2014not great, but not abysmal:<\/p>\n

2026: 89 OPS+ vs LHP; 84 OPS+ LHB vs LHP<\/p>\n

That being said, I wouldn\u2019t mind seeing a few Red Right Hands on opposing mounds in the near future\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Quoting from the Book of Ben, chapter & verse: \u201cFor seemingly the 10th season in a row, the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":575978,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[65],"tags":[253236,178484,363,99],"class_list":{"0":"post-575977","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mlb","8":"tag-lhb","9":"tag-lhp","10":"tag-mlb","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/575977","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=575977"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/575977\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/575978"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=575977"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=575977"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=575977"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}