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Griffin Jax usually has a fun, outgoing personality in the clubhouse -- but that’s been noticeably subdued amid a tough start to the season.

The right-hander is very hard on himself, manager Rocco Baldelli said -- and Jax finally got a bit of redemption when he escaped a bases-loaded jam in the 11th inning of Wednesday night’s walk-off victory over the Padres to earn the win with one of only two scoreless appearances in his last six outings.

“This game can really beat you down, especially when literally everything just doesn't go your way,” Jax said after that game. “I was talking to my wife last night -- I'd be able to live with it and swallow it if I was just getting knocked out of the park giving up homers, doubles off the wall. But when balls are barely leaving the infield and somehow they're putting up runs, like errors or whatever, that's the frustrating part.”

Look at all the red on Jax’s Baseball Savant page (red is good), and it’s reflective of what Jax describes: He’s been pitching well enough to do his job very well. He’s striking hitters out, he’s inducing weak contact (the Majors’ 91st percentile in expected slugging against), and he’s inducing a ton of ground-ball contact (a career-high 62 percent) -- all of which are extremely desirable in a high-leverage reliever.

It’s just that, well, he might be one of the unluckiest pitchers in baseball this year. When only looking at the box score, this past 10-game stretch is a bit of a mess: four losses, three blown saves and a 5.79 ERA.

In the first nine of those games, only six of the 28 batted balls off Jax classified as hard-hit (though his most recent appearance, a loss to the Cubs, was a game in which he was truly hit hard, with line drives all over the field). But it’s felt like a large chunk of the damage against Jax has come on soft flares finding outfield grass, soft grounders to no-man’s-land mishandled by the defense, other grounders just out of reach of infielders -- and a wide array of other mishaps.

Put it this way: Jax’s ERA this season is 4.32. According to the quality of contact he’s giving up, Statcast indicates his expected ERA should be 2.76. That’s a pretty big discrepancy.

“It's tough mentally, because I'm out there, trusted to do a job, and the results and underlying analytics say I'm doing it, but at the end of the day, I'm still getting a loss,” Jax said.

Of course, it’s tough to look at the expected numbers in a vacuum, because, well, the actual results are the ones that matter and factor into the wins and losses on any given day. But when baseball decision-makers evaluate a player, it’s far more prudent to look at what the underlying numbers say, because those strip away the variance and weirdness of baseball -- of which there has been a ton with Jax on the mound.

The Twins know what those are, of course, and they also see the weirdness for themselves -- and see all the strikeouts and ground balls and weak contact. They have to separate the outcomes from a largely good process -- even as Jax deals with that frustration.

“He strives to be great, and he expects a lot,” Baldelli said. “When things don’t go exactly the way he wants, I think it’s tough. He deals with that in his own way, but I’ve got to remind him sometimes of just how good he actually is.”

The stuff is still very good. His fastball is up a tick to a 96 mph average, his slider is moving more, and his changeup is generating more swings and misses than ever.

“The guy is nasty,” Baldelli said. “He may not be feeling like that right now, but he’s going to be a guy that we’re going to continue to turn to, because I think he’s a quality option for us.”

Relievers are notoriously volatile, but the Twins know how good Jax is at his best and understand the weirdness that has permeated too many of his outings this season. They counted on him to be a key setup man alongside Jorge López ahead of the fire-breathing Jhoan Duran -- and they’re still very much going to do that.

“Griffin Jax isn’t going anywhere,” Baldelli said. “He’s too good for that.”