Twins are not vampires, prefer playing in daylight

editors note: Ben wrote this before the Tigers series, but I am just now getting it published. If the stats are a bit behind, blame me. Its still a great post.

The early stages of May is the perfect time for ridiculous overreactions for baseball fans.

There have been enough games for it not be ridiculous to start looking at the standings and talking about how many games back or ahead your favorite club is at this point. At the same time, we’re still talking about roughly 20 percent of the regular season, and all small-sample-size caveats still apply.

So, as long as we’re talking about small sample sizes, let’s talk about how the Minnesota Twins are clearly not a collective group of vampires.

How do we know? Well, if we aren’t counting night games, the 2019 Twins are playing at a pace that is slightly better than the 1906 Chicago Cubs, who are the leader in winning percentage over the course of a full season.

Back in 1906, when there were only 152 regular season games, the Cubs went 116-36, which is a .763 winning percentage. Coming into play this weekend, the Twins are now 14-4 in day games, according to ESPN — a .777 clip.

The only other teams in the league that even come close to rivaling Minnesota’s record in day games are the San Diego Padres (12-3), Chicago Cubs (11-5), and the Philadelphia Phillies, who are 9-3 but have played two-thirds the number of day games as the Twins. Everyone else is within a couple games of the .500 mark.

Of course, there doesn’t seem to be any rhyme or reason to their daytime dominance. It isn’t like they’re an extremely old club that doesn’t go out at night, or an extremely young club that can wake up and get going without as much of a warm-up routine that veterans may need to get ready for a game.

Their daytime record will be challenged a bit this weekend with a day-night doubleheader on Saturday against Detroit, followed by a regular 1:05 p.m. Central Time first pitch against the Tigers on Sunday. After the Tigers series, however, the club has just four day games for the rest of the month of May.

Of course, the other way to look at this is that the Twins are just 9-8 at night. Which means there will be plenty of opportunity for the Twins to improve that mark moving forward.

Here’s to day baseball!