2️⃣6️⃣8️⃣ pic.twitter.com/mNC58pnaNO

— Minnesota Twins (@Twins) September 1, 2019

Boom. History made!

No other @MLB team has hit more home runs than the #BombaSquad!

?????? pic.twitter.com/S98f8NIE0p

— Minnesota Twins (@Twins) September 1, 2019

[/et_pb_code][et_pb_text _builder_version=”3.27.4″ hover_enabled=”0″ _i=”2″ _address=”0.0.0.2″]

Or not… I guess. If you break the homerun record and nobody cares… did you really break the homerun record? That’s a question I can’t help but ask myself. If you are old enough to remember Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa gunning for the Single Season HR Record back in 1998 or when Barry Bonds ran McGwire’s record down in 2001, then you should be a little surprised at how little steam the Twins have gotten for demolishing the Single Season Team Homerun Record this season or even the Yankees BARELY surpassing the previous record last year…

 Sure, the Yankees got more run on the topic last season than we did this year, but that’s expected for obvious reasons that we don’t need to go into. Last year though, even for the Yankees, the uproar about breaking a HR record that was held since 1997 (21 years) was pretty damn quiet… and now a year later, as the Twins overshoot the new record by 30+ bombas… the sports world would rather watch the US Open (Tennis not Golf) or talk about European Kickball… than track this record-setting team.

 There is some logic behind this hush-hush nature, though. The biggest problem are these juiced baseballs. Nobody gives a fuck about a HR record when everyone in the MLB might as well be on steroids. Everyone is hitting homeruns and three 2019 teams alone, are going to break the record set last year by the Bronx Bombers…including the 2019 Bronx Bombers (plus the Twins and the Dodgers) These new baseballs are going to change the record books for America’s Pastime forever and I see it happening in one of two ways.

1. Asterisk on 2019: The MLB goes back to the old baseballs or makes changes to the ball/bat/game that make the ball go over the fence at what was a normal pace before this season, leading to an asterisk next to 2019 as the “juiced baseballs year”.
2. New Baseball Era: The MLB stays with the current baseballs, they continue to go over the fence at a ridiculous rate for the next handful of years, and you now have to decipher why baseball, up until 2019, hit so few homeruns. The “Live Ball Era” will become the “New Baseball Era” or something wittier than that.

It’s something that is kind of hard to think about when it is happening but we are going to need a way of explaining to our kids and grandkids why the MLB was such a pussy league before 2019 OR why the only power record held by a Minnesota Twins team is shrouded by juiced baseballs…

Either way, I’m sure glad the Twins are a part of the conversation.

Eric Strack | Minnesota Sports Fan

The new culture inside of the Rocco Baldelli-led clubhouse has everyone excited. The Twins finally seem to be on the cutting edge of the MLB which is a mind-numbing thought. It all seems to be positive so far. But as Dan Hayes of The Athletic wrote today, the games haven’t started yet. The players are clearly happy with the new data-driven route to success and the laid-back clubhouse approach, but that should be expected. You’d be happy too, if your boss came in and told you the company was going to take a “work less but more efficiently” approach to the job, going forward.

Later start, more activity and other changes are part of the new routine under Rocco Baldelli at #MNTwins spring training. @LaVelleNeal goes deep on the changes. https://t.co/KyfV81x70O pic.twitter.com/bHVHBAb5sf

— Star Tribune Sports (@StribSports) February 19, 2019

[/et_pb_code][et_pb_text _builder_version=”3.19.14″]

However, if you look beyond the natural shots of dopamine and the positivity coming out of the clubhouse, you can find plenty of positivity in the only thing you can take tangibly (kind of) from Spring Training.

Statistics

The MLB keeps detailed stats of their Spring Training games. Historically, you haven’t even been able to rely on stats from games played before the season starts because everything changes when real games start playing out. But, if we step back as far as we can and look at the team numbers as a whole, HOPEFULLY some of these numbers will carry-over.

Twins Spring Training Stats via MLB.com

Batting

Homeruns – 46 (4th MLB)

Batting Average – .281 (3rd MLB)

OPS: On Base + Slugging – .830 (3rd in MLB)

RBI: Runs Batted In – 162 (7th in MLB)

Pitching

ERA: Earned Runs Average / 9 Innings – 5.16 (10th in MLB)

Strikeouts – 259 (T-11th in MLB)

Batting Average Against – .262 (15th in MLB)

Again, Spring Training can usually be thrown in the garbage but I’d sure as hell rather have a good spring than a bad one. The Twins have been among the best in the MLB on offense and the pitching has been average or better… If (and it’s a big if) that is the formula when the games matter then the Twins will win nearly 90 games along with the division crown.

Personal stats in Spring Training matter even less but for those interested…. Byron Buxton recorded 36 official at-bats where he hit .444 with 4 HR, 15 RBI, and 5 K’s…

via GIPHY

Eric Strack | Minnesota Sports Fan