Why can’t the Minnesota Twins hit lefties? As a new season begins, a familiar problem persists

During the “Bomba Squad” season of 2019, the Minnesota Twins’ lineup led the majors with an .872 OPS versus left-handed pitchers, including the most home runs against lefties (95) by any team in MLB history and the highest slugging percentage off lefties (.521) in American League history.

It was an offense built to punish southpaws, featuring right-handed power hitters Nelson Cruz, Byron Buxton, Miguel Sanó, Mitch Garver, Jonathan Schoop and C.J. Cron, each of whom slugged over .550 with an OPS above .900 versus lefties.

And then the Twins’ lineup just stopped hitting left-handers.

Combined over the six-plus seasons since then, the Twins rank 21st in OPS versus lefties, placing outside the top 10 every year and never producing an OPS above .732. While this season is still extremely young, it’s already trending in a familiar — and negative — direction against lefties.

This year, through three series, the Twins have faced a left-handed starting pitcher five times in nine games — tied for most in MLB — and they have a 1-4 record while scoring 3.4 runs per game. They’ve batted .169 with a .530 OPS versus lefties, striking out in 27 percent of their plate appearances.

“It’s a little unprecedented,” manager Derek Shelton said of the abundance of lefty matchups while looking ahead to the Twins’ upcoming opponents. “I think we’re going to get eight (lefties) in the first 16 games.”

Ugly early numbers will inevitably improve as the 2026 sample grows, but the lineup struggling with lefties was expected this season. In fact, it’s been the expectation for several years now as the front office leaned more and more into lefty hitters with lopsided splits in need of shielding from lefties.

Platooning left-handed hitters has been a common strategy across MLB for decades. For that approach to succeed, it requires pairing the lefty bats with capable right-handed platoon partners. The Twins have been unable or unwilling to get the righty pieces needed to complete the puzzle.

It’s become a running joke on my podcast: Every offseason, the Twins are seemingly in need of multiple right-handed hitters to platoon with a logjam of lefty bats. Every offseason, we highlight the low-cost free agents who fit that description. Every offseason, the Twins ignore that need entirely.

This offseason was perhaps the most glaring example. Despite having lefty hitters Matt Wallner, Trevor Larnach and Kody Clemens atop their depth chart at three offense-driven positions, and all three sporting a career OPS below .650 off lefties, the Twins failed to add a single good right-handed bat.

Instead, their only offseason lineup additions of note were Victor Caratini and Josh Bell, switch-hitting veterans who are weaker from the right side. Caratini and Bell, who each had a sub-.725 OPS versus lefties the past three years, are now starting at first base and designated hitter versus lefties.

Austin Martin is now the starting left fielder versus lefties, which puts a lot of pressure on his on-base skills and speed to make up for an extreme lack of power for a corner spot. In right field, the Twins don’t even have a righty option, so Wallner, with a career .642 OPS versus lefties, plays every day.

“The fact that we’re a little left-handed heavy may be something we have to look at as we get farther down the road,” Shelton said. “But overall — knock on wood — I’ve been pretty pleased with our at-bats that we’ve had against the left-handers.”

Why build a lineup full of left-handed hitters in need of shielding from left-handed pitchers and then not bring in quality right-handed bats to platoon with them? Why stock the bench with even more lefty bats, such as James Outman, at the expense of righty options that would be far better fits?

Those questions have essentially become rhetorical at this point, because it’s been the same story nearly every season. Stockpile left-handed hitters. Ignore the right-handed complements. Struggle with left-handed pitching. It’s certainly headed in that direction again this season.

There were 13 position players on the Twins’ opening roster. Two of them, Luke Keaschall and Tristan Gray, don’t have enough MLB playing time for their career splits to be meaningful. Here’s how the other 11 hitters stacked up in terms of wRC+ versus lefties over the previous three-plus seasons:

(Note: wRC+ is scaled so 100 represents league-average production.)

Those are the options the Twins have given themselves when facing lefties. Buxton and Ryan Jeffers have legit track records of mashing lefties. Martin has shown some early signs of being solid against lefties. Royce Lewis has been average-ish versus lefties. And then … that’s it.

Clemens, Outman, Larnach and Wallner are left-handed hitters who have been varying degrees of terrible against lefties. Bell and Caratini are switch-hitters with below-average production versus lefties. Brooks Lee is a switch-hitter who has struggled from both sides of the plate early in his career.

Keaschall has hit .192 in limited exposure to lefties in the majors so far, but as a good right-handed hitter, it’s fair to assume he’ll eventually prove to be an asset against them. For the Twins to start trending in a positive direction against lefties, they desperately need that to be the case.

“I think we’re going to turn it around and find a way to get some hits off lefties,” Keaschall said. “I don’t think we’re just going to never hit a lefty. It’s baseball. It comes in waves. … I don’t even think about (facing lots of lefties). I just go up there and hit. If it’s a righty, cool. If it’s a lefty, cool.”

So, why can’t the Twins hit lefties? Ultimately, the players need to perform, and they’ll especially need high-end production from Buxton, Jeffers, Lewis and Keaschall as the core right-handed hitters. But it’s also a known design flaw, from years of roster decisions, unfolding largely as expected.

And it’s an issue that isn’t going away. AL Central opponents account for one-third of the Twins’ schedule, and the Detroit Tigers, Kansas City Royals, Cleveland Guardians and Chicago White Sox have a combined 40 percent of their rotation spots filled by left-handed starters.

Twins hitters have logged MLB’s second-most plate appearances against left-handed pitchers so far this season. Last week, they faced the Royals’ trio of lefty starters — Kris Bubic, Noah Cameron and Cole Ragans — three games in a row and scored a total of three runs off them across 17 innings.

This week, the Tigers are in town for a four-game series at Target Field that begins Monday night. Detroit is scheduled to start left-handers in two of the games: back-to-back Cy Young winner Tarik Skubal and two-time All-Star Framber Valdez. This is the wrong division for struggling against lefties.