Well, there are only 146 games left in the season, and I feel like the Twins have given away that first 10%. We'll call it their baseball tithe. Only with a tithe, we expect the blessing to overflow once we have given that first 10%. So, rather than dwell on the 6-10 record, last place in the Central, the .235 batting average, the 5 total home runs, and so on; let's think about what's to come. After all, we're on a 2 game winning streak!
1. We have 3 more games this week against the O's, who have lost 8 in a row! If there was ever a right time to play a team, that time is now.
2. We trail the White Sox by only a game, and Detroit by a game and a half. If we thought about that at the beginning of the season I think we would all consider that this season is going to be a fun ride! Unfortunately the Indians have jumped out to a 12-4 record and lead us by 6 games. Let's be realistic though - there is no way Cleveland can keep up this pace; although it is baseball and anything can and will happen.
3. We have 5 home runs - 5 HOME RUNS!!! At some point that will turn around. We have too much power on this team to hit a homer once every three nights. Morneau has fouled about 628 fastballs straight back to the screen already, and that tells me it's only a matter of time before he starts finding the sweet spot on that chunk of maple.
4. With the exception of Frankie, our starting staff has been nothing less than rock-solid. Liriano is coming around, and when that happens - if everyone stays reasonably healthy - our starters will keep us in every game, every night.
5. Nishioka and Mauer will come back. Mauer's injury is sounding less and less serious every day, so let's give him a couple more weeks. Nishioka will be back around the same time, and I believe we'll begin to see the offense take off. I know those two guys can hit like crazy, and Nishioka will be an enormous upgrade defensively back at 2nd. Tolbert has done a great job filling in, but my confidence level with Cuddyer or Hughes at 2nd is about as high as it would be trying to hit an Aroldis Chapman heater.
6. Kubel and Delmon each stole a base the other day. Finally, Gardy said the other day that everyone needs to be ready for the steal sign. It's about time! I don't care how slow you are (with the exception of Mr. Thome), we need to be more aggressive on the basepaths. Are we going to run into some outs? Sure we are. Are we going to run ourselves into a lot of runs? Sure we are. When the sluggers aren't slugging, we can't wait around hoping, we need to create some runs. Repko was out by 10 feet against Tampa, but the throw went into center field and Repko made it to 3rd. Let's put some pressure on the defense and create some runs!
Now that the dust settled with the Mauer situation and I'm thinking rationally again, obviously a position move is realistically out of the questions for now. I'm ok with that. Butera and Holm have done a great job filling in both offensively and especially defensively, but I can't wait to get the birthday boy back behind the plate again. The thing that makes baseball so interesting is that the season is long, teams and players go on streaks, every day is a new day, and every inning is a new inning. The last 90% is going to be exciting, no matter how bad the first 10% was. Hang in there Twins fans, it could be worse. Lew Ford could be our #3 hitter.
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