After just eight games, it's much too early to draw any meaningful conclusions from any individual or team stats, but three series into the season, the Twins have played a pair of very competitive series against a pair of playoff favorites -- the Indians and Phillies -- and the numbers have also backed up what looks to be a promising start to the 2019 campaign.

Here's a look at four stats to watch as the season continues to unfold:

2.70 bullpen ERA
Minnesota's relief corps were a point of scrutiny entering the season after the Twins added only Blake Parker to a bullpen that finished 21st in the Majors with a 4.45 ERA and led baseball with 89 homers allowed a season ago.

But even as the Twins have used a short bullpen early in the season, with just 11 pitchers on the roster until Saturday, Minnesota's relievers have thrived despite fluid and extended usage at times. Twins relievers are seventh in the Majors with a 2.70 ERA, and their four core late-inning options -- Taylor Rogers, Trevor May, Trevor Hildenberger and Parker -- have combined to allow just two runs in 16 innings (a 1.13 ERA) with 10 strikeouts and four walks.

"Whatever reason we're doing what we're doing, our guys have gone out there and they haven't just done their jobs, they've risen and pitched very well throughout," manager Rocco Baldelli said. "If we can carry on what we've been doing out of the bullpen, we're going to be in good shape."

Minnesota's relievers have allowed just four of 15 inherited runners to score, with Hildenberger seemingly the primary option so far to pitch out of jams. One thing to keep an eye on moving forward, though, is that the bullpen's strikeout-walk ratio has room to improve, with 26 strikeouts and 17 free passes issued so far.

96.2 mph average exit velocity for Buxton
After simplifying his swing and adding 21 pounds during the offseason, Byron Buxton arrived at Target Field for Opening Day with the goal of just reacting and hitting the ball hard, and so far, he's been doing so to a greater degree -- and more consistently -- than he has in his entire career.

Buxton's 96.2 mph average exit velocity on batted balls ranked eighth in baseball entering Monday, and his 21.4 percent barrel rate and 57.1 percent hard-hit rate rank among the top 6 percent of the Major Leagues so far.

Three of the five hardest-hit balls of Buxton's career have come in the first eight games of 2019. A 113.4 mph double off Corey Kluber on Opening Day marked his career best, followed three days later by his second-best mark of 111.6 mph on a two-run double off Carlos Carrasco. Buxton hit a 110.9 mph single against Jake Arrieta on Saturday, tied for his fourth-hardest batted ball.

"I'm in a good spot in my swing, especially coming out of Spring Training," he said on Opening Day. "I grooved out a few more things I thought I had going on, and I couldn't be any happier where I'm at."

.357 xwOBA for the Twins' offense
Minnesota's offense has posted 4.38 runs per game through Sunday, a hair below the MLB average of 4.51, and the Twins' team OPS of .747 doesn't particularly stand out, either. One reason for that, of course, could be that Minnesota has faced a pair of solid pitching staffs in the Indians and Phillies.

But casting aside the results and looking at the quality of contact that the team's hitters have made early this season, there's reason to believe that the Twins' offensive productivity hasn't been indicative of how well they've hit the ball.

The Twins' expected wOBA of .357, calculated using the exit velocities and launch angles of every batted ball this season and comparing to historic balls in play, ranks fifth in the Majors behind the Dodgers, Braves, Yankees and Phillies. Minnesota's actual wOBA of .324 is the third-largest underperformance in MLB compared to expectations so far.

Many factors could go into that, but significantly, the team played its Opening Series in frigid temperatures in Minnesota -- conditions in which batted balls tend to carry less. Even so, the Twins' average exit velocity of 89.5 mph as a team is sixth in the Major Leagues.

Notably, the Twins' pitching staff also has an expected wOBA against of .282, the sixth-lowest mark in baseball, meaning that Minnesota is the only team to be in the top six in hitting and pitching xwOBA at this point in the year.

61 strikeouts as a team
Perhaps Willians Astudillo's influence is rubbing off on his teammates. Led by the nemesis of the three true outcomes himself, the Twins' lineup has largely found ways to put the ball in play so far, as Minnesota's 61 strikeouts rank second-fewest and 23 walks are fifth-fewest in the Major Leagues.

Even as Eddie Rosario, Jonathan Schoop and Marwin Gonzalez have started relatively slowly at the plate, their strikeout rates -- hovering around 25 percent -- haven't been outliers in their early struggles. In fact, Schoop and Gonzalez have posted above-average hard-hit rates early this season, and Rosario has started to find his footing with three hits, including a homer, in the last three games.