Minnesota Twins' lifeless 0-4 start comes with some concerning statistics

The 2025 Minnesota Twins have gotten off to an extremely slow start, to put it gently. Four games into the season, they're 0-4 and have been outscored 28 to 6. They've held a lead for a little over one total inning so far, and they were hitless for nearly seven innings in a 9-0 blowout loss against the White Sox — a team that lost 121 games in 2024 — on Monday night.

Yes, it's extremely early, as team president Derek Falvey said at an event on Tuesday.

"We sure don't always make it easy on ourselves, do we?" Falvey joked. "The first four games have not been exactly what we wanted to see from our team on the field, but I can tell you that we have everything in this roster and on this team to make 2025 an incredible success. 158 out of 162 left, I think if you're a football fan, we might be just entering the second quarter of game one of the season. So I think we've got some time here, and we'll get the bats going as we go forward."

But even if the Twins are less than 2.5 percent of the way through their season, the degree to which they've struggled so far is absolutely concerning.

Offensively, their six runs are dead last in baseball heading into Tuesday night's slate. Their 18 hits are tied for last with the Astros. They're also 30th in baseball in batting average (.143), on-base percentage (.206), and OPS (.436).

From a pitching standpoint, the Twins' 7.31 ERA and 1.72 WHIP both rank 29th, ahead of only the Brewers, who have allowed a whopping 45 earned runs in four games. Joe Ryan pitched well in Saturday's game during the season-opening sweep in St. Louis, but Pablo Lopez was shaky in game one and then Bailey Ober and Chris Paddack both got demolished in the last two outings.

There's just not a lot of historical precedent for how poorly the Twins have started this season — and the precedent that does exist is rather scary. Only one other MLB team has ever started out 0-4 while scoring six runs or fewer and allowing at least 28 runs. That was the 1988 Orioles, who were outscored 30-2 in their first four games. They started that year 0-21 (which stands as the record for consecutive losses to open a season) and finished with a 54-107 record.

Since 1961, the Twins are just the 16th team to be 0-4 with six runs scored or fewer. Only one of the previous 15 teams — the 2011 Rays — made the postseason. That Rays team was 0-6 before finishing 91-71 and making the playoffs as a wild card team. Five others won at least 81 games, but the list also includes nine teams that finished with losing records, including the 2012 Twins (66-96) and the 2003 Tigers (43-119).

These four games going about as poorly as possible doesn't change the fact that the Twins have a fairly talented roster. They're not going to start 0-21. And with two more games against the White Sox before the home opener series against a struggling Astros team, they're almost certainly not even going to match the 2016 Twins with an 0-9 start. If you're looking for silver linings, it's also worth noting that no team in the AL Central is better than 2-2 through four games.

But the Twins need to turn things around quickly. This putrid start has raised serious cause for concern, and there's a real risk that they'll bury their season if they keep digging themselves into a deeper and deeper hole.

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