The Twins come out of the first weekend of the 2018 season with the highest average game score among starting staffs, 77.3 points per start. Jake Odorizzi, Kyle Gibson, and Jose Berrios did not allow the Orioles to score in 21 innings of work. What interests me about those numbers is the relatively high number of walks, eight for the starting staff. Since the Twins became good early in this century, the strength of their pitchers came from stinginess with base on balls. The way the Orioles offense is constructed, however, it’s tough for them to score without home runs. Therefore, it might make sense to pitch around the power hitters, walking a few more batters to prevent home runs.

It also appears the Twins were taking advantage of the Orioles desire to hit home runs. Fifty percent of the Orioles balls in play were labeled as fly balls. Of those, 15.6% where pop ups. I would guess the Twins did a very good job of throwing four-seam fastballs that wound up higher in the strike zone than the Orioles expected.

That’s an impressive three starts. Camden Yards can be a tough park for pitchers, but the Twins appeared to devise a good game plan, and executed it well. If they can keep that up, they may give the Indians a very good run for the division title.