Published: June 30, 2008 12:56 am         

What the Twins' streak signals

Now that the Twins’ 10-game winning streak is over, we can ask: What does it tell us about this team?

Quick answer: That it’s better — maybe a lot better — than most of us suspected, or even hoped.

We’ve seen longer winning streaks in recent years — the 2002 Oakland A’s, for example, ran off a 20-game binge.

But a 10-0 run is long enough, and extreme enough, to suggest that this is not a mere .500 club, much less the 90-plus loss team many anticipated entering the season.

In his 1985 Baseball Abstract, Bill James published probability charts on the chances for streaks. This was in the context of examining the 35-5 sprint out of the gate of the 1984 Tigers.

According to James, a .650 team — which would win about 105 games in a 162-game season — has a 1.3 percent chance of running off a 10-game winning streak at some point. A .500 team (81-81) has a .1 percent chance.

The significance is in the extremes. A 9-1 record isn’t close to being as significant; a .500 club has a 1 percent chance of such a spell. A mediocre team is far, far more likely to go 9-1 at some point than to go 10-0.

Now, James’ charts are theoretical, the results of statistical probabilities. They’re not the specific result of historical research. He’s not saying that .1 percent of .500 teams have a 10-game winning streak; I doubt there’s a thousand .500 records available to research.

But, says James:

In fact, baseball teams’ patters on wins and losses ... do conform in the main to the expectations of chance sequences; .450 teams do not win 10 straight games, except on rare occasions. They might win eight straight or nine straight, but that’s completely different; a .450 team will go 8-2 more than 50 times as often as they will go 10-0.

The Twins’ specific history isn’t so emphatic.

This was the their seventh double-digit winning streak since arriving in Minnesota in 1961. The longest —15 — came in the 1991 season; the Twins won the World Series that year.

But two of the seven streaks came with sub-.500 teams; the 1980 Twins had a 12-game streak (second longest in club history) at the end of the season and the 1985 Twins had a 10-gamer early in the year.

The others all came in 90-plus win seasons: 10 straight in 1963 (91-70); 11 in 2003 (90-72) and 11 in 2006 (96-66).

If the 2008 team wins 90 games, I think they’ll take the division title.

Roster games

Saturday’s game was the first time since Matt Macri was sent back to Triple A that the Twins faced a left-handed starter. Brian Buscher, who had been platooned, started at third.

That made sense, given the options: Alexi Casilla got the day off with an injured finer, so Nick Punto was playing second, and Mike Lamb hasn’t done anything against lefties.

Besides, Buscher got a key hit the day before against a lefty. Granted, it was a soft flare, but it was a hit. And Ron Gardenhire has an ingrained habit of going with the hot hand, and Buscher, getting his playing time against right-handers, has certainly been that.

So Buscher started. He went hitless. Which didn’t make him much different from most of the Twins hitters Saturday.

The Twins didn’t lose because Buscher was in the lineup, but he didn’t do much to help. It’s too soon to say that he can’t handle the full-time job, but I’m not optimistic.





Edward Thoma is a Free Press staff writer. He is at 344-6377 or at ethoma@mankatofreepress.com. He also has a baseball blog at www.mankatofreepress.com/ethomabaseball