THOMA COLUMN | Baseball in 2022: Stand around and wait for a long ball

May 9—Saturday's Twins game summarized baseball in 2022.

Nine pitchers took the mound for the two teams; the winning team's starter went just four innings. There were eight hits, one error, five walks and two hit batters, so almost half the baserunners came without a ball in play. Jorge Polanco hit a long home run for the only run.

Of the 51 outs, 24 came on strikeouts.

This is a universal formula in the analytic era: Short starts followed by a bullpen parade. Pitchers display high-velocity arms but rely on breaking balls more than fastballs. Power bats rule because it's easier to get two runs on a walk and homer than by bunching together four singles.

I spent years grumbling that this was the path the Twins should pursue. And now they have, but so has everybody else.

And guess what? It's boring.

The moral is obvious: Be careful what you wish for, because you just might get it.

The Twins, at least so far this season, do this style of play better than most. For all the off-season angst over the pitching staff, the Twins entered Sunday's play third in baseball in runs allowed per game and lead the AL Central by three games.

You are free to dismiss this critique of today's game as the rants of a change-adverse old guy. The analytic approach is everywhere today because it works.

If you tried to run a team in today's game the way Earl Weaver, Tommy Lasorda and Whitey Herzog — Hall of Fame managers all — ran theirs in the 1970s and '80's, you'd lose.

But I miss the days when there were obvious differences in approaches.

Some teams, like Weaver's Orioles, based their offense on the three-run homer; others, like Herzog's Cardinals, on batting average and speed. Sparky Anderson and Herzog went to their bullpens aggressively; Weaver and Lasorda loved complete games.

Any approach could win. You just had to do it well enough.

The biggest difference strategically between teams today is probably platooning. Tampa Bay and San Francisco in particular have constructed rosters loaded with versatile, interchangeable pieces who fit around a couple of foundational stars. But my sense is that everybody looking to compete is trying to do that, too; some are just better at finding the right mix of skills.

I don't think the homogenization of the game is healthy. I also don't think it is easily reversed.

We can't unlearn what we know, and what we know has sent all 30 teams in the same direction, pursuing home runs from hitters and strikeouts from pitchers.

We're just waiting for the long ball, and it's boring.

Edward Thoma is at ethoma@mankatofreepress.com. Twitter: @bboutsider