The Twins are scuffling, but which scuffle is greatest

Since around mid-August, the Twins have been in a tail spin. Starting with August 18th's loss to the Rangers, it's been nearly a month of drudgery. A lot of this has been pinned on the team's financial woes, managerial missteps, and general team exhaustion. I have two other theories that kind of go hand in hand. 1 - The Twins, as are all Minnesota men's sports, are cursed. 2 - Since about mid-August, the Twins have been without the three top WAR producers on the team, Carlos Correa, Byron Buxton, and Joe Ryan. That's unlucky, but it is fortunate that some combination of those three will be back before seasons end and the post season. 

But if you want depressive takes on what is going on, or someone who is willing to pack it in for the rest of this season and look at the future as a Pohlad (modestly) funded abyss, then you can go to Twins Daily. I'm here because of something I heard on the news last night, roughly, "It's not just the pitching and defense that are bad, the offense isn't very good either." 

Oh? I have been under the impression that the set back in offense has been significantly worse than the run prevention side. I dug into it a little bit. First, I looked at the runs against. In the season ahead of the slump, so through the 17th, opponents were scoring at a clip of 4.3 runs per game. Since that time, that number has jumped to 5.1 runs a game, or about .8 runs more per game.

On offense, the Twins have scored at an abysmal 3.3 runs a game, compared to their pre 8/18 average of 4.9 runs a game. The offense has cratered at twice the clip of their run prevention. In fact, according to Fangraphs, the Twins have the 4th highest pitching WAR in the Major League baseball, which suggests they are pretty good. Since they lost Ryan, they are #12, which means, and hold on tight... they have dropped to slightly above average. Lost in the misery is the fact that Pablo Lopez has been great, Bailey Ober has been incredible, and Simeon Wood-Richardson has silently been a strong back of the rotation starter all year. The pitching seems worse because the Twins are so bad at scoring runs themselves.

Since 8/18, the Twins offense has been 4th from the bottom in all of baseball. They were 7th overall before that The only player regularly producing is Carlos Santana. Maybe it's exhaustion. Maybe it's a slump. Maybe it's Maybelline. I don't know, but the offense is the problem, underlined, bullet pointed and starred. The Twins need Carlos Correa and Byron Buxton back to give the offense a hard reboot. Hell, I would take Alex Kirilloff at this point. 

The pitching since the slump started has taken a mild step back. The offense went from being a strength to no longer being competitive. It's as simple as that.