Numbers show Twins bullpen struggling mightily

It says a lot about the state of the Twins that arguably the biggest story line from their series with the AL Central-leading White Sox was whether Willians Astudillo was treated fairly as a reliever during a 16-4 blowout Monday.

But it says even more about their bullpen that Astudillo is a decent option — based on statistics at least — for that group right now.

The whole idea of a bullpen is to provide some relief in troubling times, but the Twins relievers are failing in that mission.

While the bullpen has combined to throw 147 innings this season, which ranks 21st according to Baseball Reference, they have the most losses and fewest wins of any team: 3-13, a .188 winning percentage. For comparison's sake, the second-worst bullpen in baseball record-wise is Colorado at 5-11 (.313).

The bullpen has already surpassed their loss total from 2020, when relievers went 14-12 during the course of a 60-game season.

To view the current situation at a player level, consider that Astudillo — the Twins utility infielder, occasional catcher and all-around embodiment of baseball joy — was tied for the fourth most Wins Above Replacement (WAR) among the Twins bullpen at 0.0 heading into Wednesday afternoon's 2-1 loss to the White Sox.

What's troubling is that Astudillo's contributions are the equal of Jorge Alcala, Lewis Thorpe and Luke Farrell this season while trailing only Devin Smeltzer, Taylor Rogers and Hansel Robles, who all just barely eek past "La Tortuga" at 0.1 WAR.

A friendly reminder that Astudillo has pitched two innings and allowed a solo homer on a 3-0 count for his only earned run on the season.

Some of the relievers who trail him?

Caleb Thielbar (-0.2), Tyler Duffey (-0.2), Cody Stashak (-0.4), Randy Dobnak (-0.6) and Alex Colome (-0.8).

At 42 games into the season, the Twins 5.03 bullpen ERA would rank as the sixth worst in franchise history — though if you want some hope for the current group and the team, the 1987 Twins bullpen, the year the team won the World Series, posted an ERA of 5.11 over 429⅔ innings.

So while the Twins offense has struggled in 2021 and the starters have languished, it's hard not to look at the bullpen and see the root of the Twins problems being a sore lack of relief.