World Series champion Astros will be better test if Twins are better

Is the Twins' pitching this good, or are the Royals' and Marlins' offenses that bad? Opening weekend at Target Field may offer more hints than Minnesota's first-week road trip did.

That's because the world championship Houston Astros, the American League's highest scoring team since 2019, is the opposition as the Twins begin their 14th season at their downtown ballpark, albeit a day late because of Thursday's frigid temperatures.

The Astros trampled the Twins last summer, winning all six meetings by a combined score of 36-11 en route to their fourth AL championship and second World Series title in the past six years.

The Twins feel more competitive this year, thanks to their deep and healthy starting rotation, which lived up to that billing in the season's first week. Over six games in Kansas City and Miami, Minnesota's starting pitchers allowed only four runs combined, over 33 ⅓ innings, helping the Twins hold their first two opponents to 11 runs.

They went only 4-2 on the trip despite that 1.90 ERA because their own offense managed only two runs in their final two games in Miami, facing Sandy Alcantara and Jesús Luzardo. But if the defining characteristic of the 2023 Twins is run suppression via good pitching and dependable defense, manager Rocco Baldelli is OK with that.

"Was it the direct intent to put together a club that we could say that about? No," Baldelli said. "You just try to build the best club that you can, and sometimes the skills of the players — you're going to look up and you're going to say, 'Well, this team's strength is picking the ball up and making plays.' "

Nothing is certain about any team just one week into the season — the Twins have played only 3.7% of their games — and that goes for both the strong pitching and inconsistent hitting. That they have scored just 24 runs in six games, ranking lower than all but the A's, Tigers and Royals in the AL, for instance, does not mean they are doomed to a quiet year at the plate.

What's odd, however, is that the Twins have scored so few runs despite being off to a hot start with runners in scoring position, a nagging headache over the past couple of seasons. Their .341 average in those cases is 100 points higher than last season, ranks behind only Tampa Bay in the AL, and accounts for 17 of their 24 runs.

"Getting a big hit, a timely hit, is something we saw fairly frequently in spring training," Baldelli said. "It can make up for a lot" of other offensive weaknesses.

Weaknesses like their lack of home runs in four of the six games, despite homers trending up around the league.

"There were probably two or three balls hit in the first couple of days [in Kansas City] that, if it's July, they're homers," Baldelli shrugged. "But it's not July, it's April."

Or weaknesses like a .295 on-base percentage, which would rank as the lowest in a full season in Twins history, but is as unlikely as the inflated scoring-position results to remain where it is. Still, in five games of facing righthanded starters, Twins' leadoff hitters Max Kepler and Nick Gordon went a combined 3-for-20 with one walk, hardly setting up any extended rallies for the middle of the lineup.

They'll face three more righthanders against the Astros, starting with José Urquidy in the opener. Sonny Gray will be on the mound for the Twins, making his first start against Houston since 2018.

Gray didn't allow a run in his first start in Kansas City, despite putting runners in scoring position in four of his five innings. There was a reason for that, the veteran righthander said.

"We played incredible defense. We made some really, really good plays," he said. "Our outfield is insane. They're running balls down. We talked about it, but I think we've got a really good visual on it, and we saw it firsthand."

Now they'll see if the positive start to the season carries over from warm weather to chilly, though Friday's 50-degree temperatures should gradually rise higher throughout the six-game homestand.

"Playing baseball in Minneapolis on Opening Day, it's a very different game," Baldelli said. "The standings count, the wins and losses count the same way, but you have to be able to cope. You have to figure out how to be effective. You got to just find a way."