Sano, Twins mashing against right-handed pitchers

The Minnesota Twins begin perhaps their quickest series of all time Tuesday afternoon — a two-game set against the St. Louis Cardinals that will be played as a seven-inning doubleheader.

And then it’s right back on the plane back to Minnesota on Tuesday night.

Hopefully, Twins slugger Miguel Sano brought his bat as carry-on luggage for the one-day excursion.

Like most of his Twins teammates, Sano has struggled against left-handed pitchers this year. In 43 plate appearances, Sano has logged a .175/.233/.375 slash line with 21 strikeouts — a 48.8 K%.

But against right-handers, those numbers are flipped.

Sano has launched seven homers and tallied 10 doubles, 15 RBI and 14 walks to go along with a .270/.375/.618 slash line in 104 PA against right-handed hurlers.

If Sano can finish the 2020 season with a slugging percentage above .600 against right-handers, he’ll become the fifth different Twins player to do so. Joe Mauer notched a .641 SLG% during his MVP campaign in 2009. Jason Kubel (2009), Kent Hrbek (1987) and Rod Carew (1977) were the other three Twins to achieve the feat. Last season, Nelson Cruz came up just short with a .590 SLG%.

Sano’s .618 SLG% ranks right behind Mike Trout (.772) and Jose Abreu (.637) for third in the American League this year.

As a team, the Twins’ slash line and raw power numbers improve greatly when facing righties compared to lefties, the latter shown by the big difference in ISO (OBP subtracted from SLG%). The Twins also rank sixth in the big leagues with a 40.9% hard-hit percentage vs. right-handers, compared to 26th against southpaws (35.9%).

The good news for Sano and the Twins is St. Louis will trot out two different right-handed starters for Tuesday’s doubleheader — Carlos Martinez and Daniel Ponce de Leon.

Bombs away!

NOTABLE

— Tuesday will mark the Cardinals’ sixth doubleheader of the 2020 season as the team makes up for missed games due to a COVID-19 outbreak in late July. St. Louis is 6-4 in doubleheader contests this year. Meanwhile, the Twins have the second-best interleague record in baseball at 9-3.

— Dating back to 2015, Minnesota has won seven of its last eight meetings with the Cardinals, outscoring them 36-14 in that span.

— Jose Berrios, the starting pitcher for Game 1, is 2-0 with a 0.75 ERA against NL teams this season. NL hitters have slumped to a .128 batting average and .384 OPS against Berrios.

Statistics courtesy Sportradar, baseball-reference.com and Fangraphs