Even pitchers who embrace the philosophy of pitching to contact admit it is, at best, counterintuitive.

"I'm not trying to strike people out," Twins starter Nick Blackburn said when asked his personal definition. "I'm trying to get a guy to hit a ground ball ... It doesn't make sense [to fans]. But at the same time, it's not like we're going up there and just laying it in there."

Tell that to Twins fans, many of whom now consider pitching to contact to be one of the blights affecting the team since the start of the 2011 season. Hitting -- or lack thereof -- is the current hot topic for the Twins, but it's been pitching that has doomed the team, now 6-18, to the worst record in the majors.

Manager Ron Gardenhire and pitching coach Rick Anderson have frequently espoused favorable views of the strategy, and gone so far as to suggest their starter with the best strikeout arsenal, Francisco Liriano, learn to embrace the "pitch to contact" philosophy. That has made Gardenhire and Anderson targets for criticism on message boards and talk radio, a bit confusing in itself since almost every major league team now embraces pitch to contact, and the Twins have utilized it for decades.

The Twins' most obvious shortcoming is that too many of their pitchers have to rely on pitch to contact due to an absence of power arms, which statistics readily verify. The Twins this season have given up the fewest walks in the American League, but they are last in strikeouts and ERA.

The pitch-to-contact philosophy itself remains very much in vogue in the majors.

The World Series entrants of last fall, St. Louis and Texas, have been leading proponents of pitching to contact for years. Former St. Louis pitching coach Dave Duncan, who retired after the Cardinals' World Series championship along with manager Tony La Russa, is so widely respected in baseball that some have suggested he should be a Hall of Fame candidate despite never managing or being a star player.

The basic tenet of Duncan's philosophy: sinkerballers throwing strikes, with the intention of letting their fielders make the outs.

"I'm not out there gunning for strikeouts," Cardinals ace Chris Carpenter told a St. Louis reporter, echoing Blackburn. "I'm out there attacking. I have the confidence in my stuff and in what I'm trying to do that I want them to swing. I'm trying to make them swing.''

Plain and simple

For those desiring a precise definition of pitch to contact, start with this: a pitcher who is trying to get hitters to put the ball in play, preferably on the ground, within three pitches. That inherently means the pitcher isn't thinking strikeout, but rather making his best pitch in a hittable zone.

"A good pitcher's pitch the majority of time is going to get a hitter out," Twins starter Scott Baker said a couple days before undergoing season- ending Tommy John surgery. "You just want the contact to be in your favor."

Power pitchers are a different breed, and no one is saying that if they get ahead in the count to forgo strikeouts. Anderson notes that Johan Santana struck a few people out during his time with the Twins, and when the lefty was on the staff, the team ranked near the top of the AL in strikeouts.

The current problem is that Liriano nibbles at the corners in his attempt to throw strikes, and too often falls behind the hitter. So the message to Liriano is to throw strikes, and the strikeouts will take care of themselves.

The emphasis on pitching to contact is inherently linked to the emphasis on pitch counts in the past two decades. The idea of getting a hitter to put the ball in play within three pitches is intended to give a starting pitcher the chance to pitch deep into a game.

"It's definitely a philosophy for success,'' Texas righthander Colby Lewis said during the Rangers' visit to Target Field last month. "You keep the ball down and make them hit ground balls ... All you want to do is get outs, and it doesn't matter how you do it."

Hall of Fame pitcher Bert Blyleven, who broke in with the Twins in 1975, said there's nothing new about pitching to contact, other than the frequent references to it.

"It's nothing more than trying to pitch in the strike zone, and then when the guy does make contact, hope it doesn't go too far," Blyleven said. "Everyone is basically saying the same thing: don't try to be too fine, pitch to contact, trust your stuff, stay in the zone."

Not for everyone

Anderson points out that the Twins starting staff, with the exception of Liriano, must pitch to contact out of necessity. Statistics show that major league hitters connect on about 80 percent of their swings.

So only a few pitchers have the sort of power stuff to rely on strikeouts. And for pitchers such as Blackburn, Carl Pavano and Jason Marquis -- all of whom have, at best, average fastballs --the ground-ball out, coupled with a low walk total, is the best thing they have in their favor.