Sunday, June 24, 2007

TWIT: A Different Drummer

Weekly Roundup

The Twins did things a little differently this week, finding a way to take two road series from two solid National League opponents. Sure, they ran into Jorge Sosa and Josh Johnson at the right times, and nobody expects too many more one strikeout shutouts. Nonetheless, it is exceedingly difficult to trash a team that outscored its opponents 38-20 over the course of the week, especially away from a home stadium that typically serves as one of its chief advantages. The 4-2 road record for the week brought the Twins to 18-17 on the road, tied with Oakland for third best in the American league behind only Anaheim and Boston. To me, the most exciting development of the week is the collection of three wins by four or more runs. Remember, close games can swing on small bounces or luck, but one mark of a really good team is the ability to win blowouts. Minnesota can survive some close games with a solid bullpen pulling them through difficult, high-leverage situations, but giving those pitchers a chance to breathe every so often while carving out a relief role for Ramon Ortiz has to be a good thing. Considering that they only carded two wins of 4+ wins through the rest of the month, scoring enough runs to cobble together some easy wins is actually a bit out of character.

I have spent a goodly amount of effort complaining about the Twins’ lack of power hitting. At first blush, this week looks scarcely different. Heading into Sunday’s season finale with Florida, Torii Hunter had managed the team’s only homerun of the week. On the other hand, once Joe Mauer teed off for his second homerun of the day Sunday, ten different players had combined for a total of 22 extra base hits. Averaging three doubles per game will compensate for quite a few missing homeruns, even when the team’s only legitimate power hitter may be bleeding internally. Finally, with all of the problems the Twins have had finding a DH who can pass as an average hitter, maybe they should consider giving Johan Santana a shot at swinging at some right handed pitching on his off days. In his two starts this week, Johan went 2-7 with a double, a triple, a walk, an RBI, and two runs scored. I do not sincerely want Santana batting every day, but anyone who has watched him hit knows that he is the sort of unique baseball talent who possesses the physical tools and the coordination to do everything well. Just like Rick Ankiel, with developmental time, I am convinced that he could be a solid big league batter.

Biggest Success

Joe Mauer started hitting again, which is a good thing. Two homeruns in Sunday’s game help to confirm that the .333/.448/.500 week was right back on his natural level. Giving up one earned run in 15 innings, tallying two wins, and sticking the inane “slump” chatter in idiot sporstwriters’ ears puts Johan Santana on the short list, as well. But since this list goes to the player of the week, I will choose to recognize someone who needed a good week after a terrible season so far.

Jeff Cirillo began the season injured, struggled through an inability to hit for any power, and could not get a regular job, even with Nick Punto hovering around a .220 batting average. In the last week, however, Cirillo has knocked the leather off of the ball, going 12-20 from last Sunday through Saturday. An 0-5 game with a strikeout to close out the week does little to temper my enthusiasm for a .600/.619/.750 week, right when the team needed it most. Consider this: the Twins 12th out of 14 in the American league in homeruns, mashing 55 to beat out Baltimore and Kansas City (53 and 52, respectively). The league leader, Texas, has 93 bombs, and five teams have managed at least 86. Even without the DH, 14 of the 16 National League teams have gone yard more times than the Twins. Of the four teams with less total homeruns, the team leaders have 10 (Melvin Mora), 13 (John Buck), 10 (Jeff Kent), and 12 (Ryan Zimmerman). Factoring in Justin Morneau’s 20 bombs, it is clear that the Twins are extremely reliant on a singular power source. Without him in the lineup, having a reserve get hot enough to slug .750 for a week is extremely fortunate.

Biggest Disappointment

Anyone who has watched the Twins for the last few weeks has noticed this trend, but I’m not sure anyone is willing to talk about it, maybe as some sort of perverse jinx: something is clearly wrong with Juan Rincon. He earns biggest disappointment status for the week by giving up 8 runs (7 earned) on 3 homers and 9 total hits in only three innings. With four consecutive seasons of at least 74 innings pitched, it is no surprise that Rincon is showing some natural wear, particularly considering the high-leverage situations he has endured for the last two years. His strikeout rate peaked in 2004 and has dropped considerably each year since, hinting at the sort of trouble he has had this year. Still, it takes more than a tiny change for a pitcher’s ERA to jump two full runs after three stables years, or for him to give up more homeruns in a week than he gave up in either of the two previous seasons. Something is up with Rincon. Just like Jesse Crain showed some seriously diminished skills before discovering a more serious shoulder problem, I think now would be a good time to shut down Rincon for a precautionary DL stint. Before the season, I campaigned for the Twins to sell high on Rincon, shopping him for 3B or OF help while other teams might still see him as a premier setup man. Now, we’re left with a best case scenario of him suffering some sort of minor shoulder injury that rest can save. With the rest of the bullpen finding its way back to health, as well as the unlikely ascension of Matt Guerrier, now is the time to be cautious.

On the Horizon

The quirks of baseball’s schedule seem so unnecessary sometimes. For instance, I will never understand why MLB builds a wall between New York and Boston for the season’s doldrums months. Similarly, I found it odd that the Twins entered their series with Florida having played three more games than Minnesota. Those extra off days start to catch up with the Twins this week, as they will go straight home from Florida to the Dome for four with the Blue Jays, followed immediately by a three game road set in Detroit, four in New York, and four in Chicago. Including the double-header against the White Sox, the Twins will enter the All-Star Break having played 18 games in 17 days. If ever there was a time for the starting rotation to excel, now is that time.

Normally, I would say that missing Dustin McGowan is a bit of misfortune. Considering that he pitched 8+ innings of a no-hitter on Sunday, and running into Roy Halladay and A.J. Burnett in the same series does not seem like such a bad thing. Those two will start the bookend games of the Toronto series, and Shawn Marcum (2.45 ERA as a starter) and the struggling Josh Towers will start the middle games. Twins fans know enough about the Tigers rotation by now, but the junk-balling, crafty lefty will be the recently healthy Kenny Rogers instead of the departed Mike Maroth.

The Big Picture

Once again, the Twins have to find a way to fend off New York and Oakland, while passing either Detroit or Cleveland within their division if they want a shot at the playoffs. Pretenders Toronto and Seattle could remain in the hunt with a few good breaks or trade deadline additions, but I do not believe either has what it takes to win the 90+ games the Wild Card winner will probably win. The Twins will take their shot against a few of these teams over the next few weeks with resurgent Toronto next on the plate, followed by the suddenly division-leading Tigers. The Yankees have cooled after a red-hot tear, and the Twins will have their own opportunity to put some distance between themselves and the Bombers with that four game set next week. And even though Chicago has struggled, a four game roadie against a big-time rival is never a sure thing. Altogether, the next two weeks will tell an awful lot about the team’s chances of contending for a playoff spot after the All-Star Break.

Sunday, June 17, 2007

TWIT: Acceptable Outcome

Weekly Roundup

Six games against two winning teams, all of them at home. In that situation, I feel like one could make the case for 4-2 being the low and high-end outcome for the week. As it went down, the week created about as many mixed feelings as possible, with the Twins cresting early on during their pitching-rich sweep of Atlanta, then tumbling to a lucky win after a blown lead to prevent a sweep on Sunday against the Brewers. After getting wrecked 11-3 in the series opener on Friday, the weekly run differential ended up slightly positive, at 31-30 in the Twins favor. Setting aside the Friday and Sunday pitching meltdowns, the Twins allowed only 10 runs in four games. Those games do count, however, and the Twins were lucky to come out of them 1-1, largely thanks to Justin Morneau’s big day and the belated return of Joe Mauer’s bat.

Last week, I described the difficulty of winning with so much of a drag on the offense coming from the players formerly known as piranhas. In several of the games this week, it became abundantly clear that pitchers have changed their approaches against these hitters and no longer care if they miss with a pitch in the strike zone. The complete lack of power is preventing players like Punto and Castillo from taking advantage of a disciplined approach at the plate, and allowing pitchers to remain economical with their counts. Castillo, for instance, is currently drawing a walk in 6.2% of his plate appearances, down from 8.6% last year and 10.3% for his career. Why would Castillo be losing half of his walks this late in his career, when players tend to start picking up a few more walks? I suspect it has to do with the fact that pitchers tend to face four or five batters in a row in the Twins lineup who cannot really do any damage, even on a mistake pitch. If the lineup ends with Redmond, Tyner, Cirillo, Bartlett, then starts over again with Castillo- or includes Punto somewhere within that stretch- the likelihood of any of the hitters driving the ball is extremely low. As a result, there is almost no disincentive for a pitcher to throw right down the middle to save pitches, because extra base hits will not serve as punishment. On the other hand, Nick Punto, who has spent a good deal of time in the #2 hole, is walking more frequently than usual, possibly because he has a real hitter behind him. Putting Mauer after Castillo may help the top of the order somewhat, although the early returns have been unimpressive.

Biggest Success

Torii Hunter had a tremendous week, with 13 total bases and six runs batted in. Instead of picking him again and discussing the same issues that have been in play all year, I am going to give a sort of season achievement award to Pat Neshek, easily one of the easiest Twins to love. Neshek had an unsurprisingly excellent week, pitching four innings over three appearances, striking out four, walking one, and yielding one hit. Neshek has been an absolute rock all year, posting a ratio of 38 strikeouts to 24 base runners over 32.7 innings. Two homeruns over 32 innings is not an alarming rate, although his style will never allow him to be much better- lefties will occasionally get a read on him very early on and absolutely tag a pitch. Neshek ranks 11th in all of baseball in WXRL, a measure that combines a relief pitcher’s saved runs with the leverage of the situations in which he saved them. At 2.3 wins so far this season, Neshek is sniffing some pretty rare air, even without pitching in the team’s highest leverage situations. Without factoring in leverage, Neshek’s ranking catapults up to 8th in all of baseball, ahead of far better known pitchers like Jonathan Papelbon and Billy Wagner, also having strong seasons. The .162 BABIP is not nearly sustainable, even with his quirkiness, but the fact that he ranks third on the staff in VORP (17.4) shows that he can fall quite a bit and remain extremely useful. While I was once concerned that Neshek’s delivery made him so susceptible to lefty slugging that he would never be a successful closer, I am no longer worried about the seemingly certain departure of Joe Nathan.

Biggest Disappointment

I already got into Luis Castillo’s problems, so I won’t beat his .296 OBP to death. I will also give a free pass to Joe Mauer, working his way back into the lineup with a sub .600 OPS. Instead, I am starting to get more concerned with the plight of Scott Baker, who has been consistently bad since his initial success. This week, Baker started sharply against the Brewers in the series opener, then fell apart in the fourth inning. He started the inning by giving up two singles, which is fine, and he even rebounded by striking out Bill Hall. From there, he hit Johnny Estrada to load the bases- a crucial mistake. Clearly rattled, he left a pitch up against Geoff Jenkins, who pulled the ball way out for a grand slam. Baker finished the inning, but compounded the problem by giving up a single, a walk, and a two run double in the fifth, never truly regaining his composure. The point of rehashing this bad memory is that it serves to illustrate how Baker has repeatedly followed misfortune with mistake after mistake. To be a successful starting pitcher, he is going to have to find a way to rebound from mistakes, maybe by challenging hitters a little more, maybe by going to his breaking ball earlier in counts. One way or another, the 7.33 ERA and the 2.0 HR rate are problems that need to be solved.

On the Horizon

It does not get any easier from here, as the Twins open the week by traveling to New York to continue their interleague tilt against the Mets. If it is any consolation, the Twins get to travel in the evening while the Mets have to play a Sunday night game on the road before returning to Shea. On the other hand, that road game is played in the Bronx, so the Twins gain very little in that respect. The Twins will see a hodge-podge of salvaged fly ball pitchers in New York, from John Maine to Jorge Sosa to Oliver Perez. The first two are coming off of week starts, but Perez pitched a well-publicized duel against Roger Clemens on Friday, which he won with 7+ shutout innings. After the New York series, the Twins will head down the coast to play the Marlins, a disappointing team that has lost three straight series. As the rotation works out, Carlos Silva will get two starts for the week, which could be worse considering his recent run of effectiveness.

The Big Picture

With Detroit and Cleveland fighting through their interleague season, the Twins have picked up a couple of games on the leaders, now within 5.5 games of the division and 4.5 games of the Wild Card. With the Yankees coming out of their slumber, it seems reasonable that there will be more of a challenge in the Wild Card race, but it remains clear that the Twins are going to have to find some more offense in order to get themselves seriously in the discussion. Adam Dunn seems like an outstanding solution to that problem, as he plays for a GM who has shown an undue affinity for Twins players in the past and loves dealing with his mentor, Terry Ryan. While Dunn’s remaining salary would probably balance out to an additional $5 million for the remainder of the season, making the postseason can be worth more than $20 million in revenue for a team, so his addition would only have to increase the playoff chances by 25%, which seems eminently possible. Even though the Twins will almost certainly not trade prospects for a big ticket strikeout slugger in his walk year, the consideration fits into the bit picture, and that’s exactly where I’m leaving it.

Sunday, June 10, 2007

TWIT: Harsh Realization

Weekly Roundup

Let’s face it, right now the Twins do not look anything like a playoff team. That’s not to say that they cannot reverse course and make a run in the second half like they did last year, but as the roster presently stands, the postseason does not seem like an attainable goal. On offense, there are four solid run producers, two at premium, up the middle positions (Mauer and Hunter), and two on the corners (Morneau and Cuddyer). These guys form a solid core for the middle of the order, albeit one that has not been intact for most of the season. For the team to succeed, the rest of the offense would have to be exceptionally strong defensively or very good at getting on base. Right now, the lame piranhas act imposed on Castillo, Punto, Tyner, and Bartlett supercedes their actual deficient abilities. Instead, that group has a less-than-stellar .338 OBP between the four of them, mostly due to the fact that Castillo is hitting an insane number of singles (59 in only 47 games). Take him and his slap-happy attitude out of the equation, and three lineup spots have a combined .323 OBP, which is not going to do the trick for three guys who have combined for 2 homeruns.

The offensive futility was on full display in a pathetic series loss to the hapless Washington Nationals pitching staff this weekend. Jason Kubel’s support for Hunter and Morneau helped total 5 runs, which was not nearly enough to compensate for Chief Silva’s terrible evening (seven ground balls and only one fly out! Seven earned to go with it, unfortunately). The next night, a quality start resulted in Johan Santana’s sixth loss of the young season, because Levale Speigner shut the offense down cold, dropping his ERA from 9.10 to 7.79 in the process. For what it’s worth, Castillo, Punto, Tyner and Bartlett went a combined 4-25 in these two games. Losing a series to a last place team is bad. Losing that series on the heels of a disappointing road trip in which the team was lucky to even win a game in Anaheim is even worse. We are now 60 games into the season, and Terry Ryan has to start noticing that something isn’t working.

Biggest Success

I have been hard on Jason Kubel for much of the year, largely because I have so badly wanted to see him succeed. Unlike the aforementioned piranhas, Kubel does not need to rely on ad campaigns to make his reputation. Before his gruesome knee injury, Kubel was one of the top corner outfield prospects in baseball, even flashing his exceptional bat control in a major league cameo at the end of the year. Since his return at the start of the 2006 season, he has struggled with inconsistency and persistent health issues- asking whether he would ever become the player he was once destined to be became a fair question. His talent is obviously still there, but the issue becomes whether his body will let him realize it.

For that reason, I will take success for Kubel in small doses. A .300/.300/.600 line might be aberrant, and it might be one of the worst possible/least sustainable routes to a .900 OPS, but production is production. Kubel contributed six hits, knocking in four and striking out only once in the last week. Even better, he hit two homeruns, showing the power that needs to develop for him to be a reliable offensive force. Although he has not produced much this year, there is hope for Kubel to be at least an average major leaguer, something that this offense needs, and something that Tyner cannot become.

Biggest Disappointment

Jason Miller had a 216.00 ERA for the week, forcing the less mathematically inclined fans to brush up on their place value skills. That all came in one bad outing in a lost cause, though, so the morning-after box score eyesore is as far as the offense extends. Clearly, the offense was more of a problem, and I will continue the piranha scapegoating theme in this section of the article. Giving the four fish a best-ball style benefit of the doubt, you can come up with a leading batting average of .269 (Castillo), a leading OBP of .313 (Tyner), and a leading SLG of .333 (Bartlett and Tyner). That sort of Nison Bartillo hybrid works out to a .646 OPS and 3 extra base hits all week. If 40% of a teams plate appearances go to players who are slightly better at the plate than pitchers, you don’t call that a bad week, you call it the 2007 St. Louis Cardinals. (Ba-dam ching!)

On the Horizon

Even though I am not in the mood to looking forward, it will likely get better from here. Losing five or six at home to the Braves and Brewers next week would be brutal, but the Twins will have lots of good 1991 karma going for the first series and already played extremely well against the Crew earlier in the season. Moreover, the Monday off day could not have come at a better time, with the entire team seemingly going through doldrums. Look for Joe Mauer to continue easing his way back into the lineup- he will not be an instant panacea for all that ails the offense, but he will be a positive contributor and the chaining effect of giving him or Redmond some DH at bats could force Tyner to the bench with his wet noodle. Against los Bravos, the Twins will miss John Smoltz, and will send Santana against the resurgent Tim Hudson on Thursday. Hudson has cooled quite a bit lately, with a 4.83 ERA in his last 10 starts, and at least 5 earned runs in four of his last five outings. His struggles meeting up with the Twins offense is a sort of impotent force versus incapable object dual where everything may collapse onto itself. Hopefully, the presence of Santana will be enough to make the difference. Altogether, even though the Braves are having a “good” season, and the Twins are struggling, Atlanta is only 3 games better than the Twins in a weaker division and league, so it should be an interesting match-up.

Last time we saw the Brewers, they were the toast of the town, riding high atop the miserable NL Central. Now, the Cardinals and Cubs are starting to show up in the “objects closer than they appear” mirror, and Milwaukee has won all of one series since last meeting up with the Twins. Their steady rotation has been a little shakier, and the Twins will definitely face weak link David Bush, so things are setting themselves up about as well as anyone could hope for the week. Personally, I am just excited that I get to see the Twins on my TBS basic cable for three games instead of mlb.tv’s incessant buffering.

The Big Picture

Now that I have all of that whining out of my system, I can give a more objective analysis of the team’s overall fortunes. I am very close to ending the “it’s only _____” mantra for the year, but it really is only June, and there is too much baseball to be played to be placing nails in the coffins of teams within single digits of the division leaders. Cleveland is a very tough team, and Detroit is showing some resilience. It is going to take genuine improvements to catch those frontrunners, and it may be possible using components on the current roster. First of all, Slowey and Baker need to settle into a rhythm of being league-average starters. Nobody expects either one of them to go Francisco Liriano on the league, but they are throwing too much BP right now. An occasional wasted pitch or a pitcher’s pitch on a 3-2 count may be appropriate. More importantly, the offense needs to get something out of the bottom of the order. With all of those outs in the bottom third, it is as if the Twins are playing 6 innings of baseball against the other team’s nine. Seriously, does anyone see the phrase, “due up: Tyner, Punto, Bartlett,” and think anything other than, “good time for a bathroom break?” For what it is worth, the Twins wanted Tyner as a 5th outfielder, and he would be fine in that role. Punto is not a good third baseman, but there are not so many of those in the league as some might think, and the ones who were available were no great shakes. And Bartlett could be better than he is playing right now. The difference between a playable offense and a failing one really comes down to either Punto or Bartlett getting on base consistently (say a .360 OBP), and Kubel hitting enough to force Tyner to the bench. With those two developments and some health, I’m not so sure the Twins cannot start looking like a postseason possibility once again.

Sunday, June 03, 2007

TWIT: A Little Bit of This, A Little Bit of That

Weekly Roundup

The Twins started the week by sweeping the rival Chicago White Sox behind bats that were alive enough to pique the interest of Ozzy Osborne’s personal chef. That fourth straight series win made it looked like the Twins were poised for a strong start on the West Coast against the depleted Athletics, but those bats that carried them through the divisional series were nowhere to be found against starters as vanilla as Joe Blanton and Chad Gaudin.

The pitching was excellent throughout the week, giving up an average of 3.2 runs per game, with the high of 6 coming in Wednesday’s win over the ChiSox. Perhaps the most encouraging part of the rotation’s success was the fact that they carried the team to a 4-2 week without any great contributions from Johan Santana, whose two starts each featured four runs surrendered and some legitimate scuffling in the early going. As Twins fans, we know better than to worry about Johan, but we’re also wise enough to know that a fourth or fifth starter is not necessarily rotation-worthy just because he received the Ryan-Gardenhire stamp of approval. With Silva putting up 15+ innings between his last two starts and a sub-2.00 ERA, the Twins seem to have a more-than-capable back of the rotation. Kevin Slowey did what Kevin Slowey does on Friday night, and it played about as well as we could have hoped against a major league lineup. Even with noticeable first game jitters early on, Slowey pounded the strike zone, living up to that mythical 2:1 strike to ball ratio and walking only two in his major league debut. Sure, some teams will do more to punish his steady diet of sinking fastballs than the take-happy A’s, but he’s likely to miss more bats against those free-swingers, as well. It is hard to say much based on one major league start, but taking his minor league numbers into consideration makes him a prime candidate to be a mid-rotation stalwart with a low ceiling and a high floor for years to come. Baker, similarly, is somewhere between the star level of his season debut and the dredges of his last couple of outings; he should be a fine and average starter for most of the year if the team remains patient with him.

The glaring problem over the last week was the inability to score runs against a depleted Oakland pitching staff, going down quickly and easily to pitchers like Santiago Casilla and Alan Embree. It has never been more apparent that Joe Mauer’s bat is essential to the team in ways that easily outweigh considerations of where he plays in the field. The lack of production out of DH and 3B make it much easier to envision a future where he moves off of full-time catching duty to an arrangement where he catches a couple of times a week, but gets enough starts elsewhere to keep himself in games and the team in contention. Scoring five runs in a weekend series is not enough reason to push the panic button on Mauer’s positional destiny. Factor in his size at the position, the absence of a single similar player who has maintained success, the certain knowledge that catchers wear down quickly, the problems he has had to this point, the fact that his bat can play smoothly at any position on the field, and the continued lack of offensive fortitude without him in the lineup, and the calculation becomes altogether more clear.

Biggest Success

I hate to sound like a broken record, but the Twins’ offensive output has been a one act play recently, and that act is named Justin Morneau. In a week where Sid Hartman made the unfathomable leap to comparing Morneau to Kirby Puckett, the AL MVP continued making those on the coasts feel less guilty about him taking that award from Derek Jeter last year. Morneau hit only two more homeruns for the week, nearly getting a second on a double off the tippy-top of the baggy against the Sox, but the rest of the stat line filled out nicely. Eight RBIs and a .682 slugging average look good, and the fact that he maintained that sort of power with only one strikeout through his 25 plate appearances should answer any lingering questions about his approach or his demeanor at the plate. The guy has matured from a tentative, one-dimensional hitter who waited on pitches he could hit for homeruns, to a multi-dimensional batter who can go to all fields, beat an infield shift, and remain patient enough that pitchers cannot easily get around him. His only offensive deficiency at this point is his speed, and I doubt more experience will do much to help him in that category.

Biggest Disappointment

Personally, I am a little disappointed that DePaula didn’t get a chance to pitch in a blowout, just to see what would happen. And if you pretend to disagree, then ask yourself if you’ve ever driven past a horrific car accident without so much as peaking into the wreckage for a quick thrill. Ultimately, DePaula cannot be blamed for the fact that he is no good. Players such as Castillo, Hunter, and Cuddyer, on the other hand, can take the blame for letting a winnable game and series get out of hand on Sunday by letting innumerable run scoring opportunities slip through their fingers. The team left a total of 24 runners on base, managing only 2 runs despite totaling 6 singes, 2 XBH’s, and 7 bases on balls. Hunter was the worst offender, failing to plate any of the five runners on base for his at bats, including a characteristic first-pitch popup with the bases loaded in the top of the third.

On the Horizon

The recent soft spot in the schedule gives out just a bit as the road trip takes the Twins into Orange County to face the Angels, a team that has been very similar to the Twins for several years, with the key difference being the ring that they bear from the 2002 season when Adam Kennedy sent the Twins home empty-handed. Kennedy has turned to Kendrick, and a handful of other young players have come through the system to become starters, but the M.O. of the team has not changed recently: pitch well and let Vlad do the rest. Another interesting parallel between the Twins and the Angels is their similarity in run differential this season. The Angels have scored only 10 more runs than the Twins while preventing 4 more for a nearly identical overall run differential. Instead of the 1 or 2 game advantage one might expect from that difference, the Angels enjoy 6.5 games in the standings, mostly due to their own overachieving ways.

After the Angels, the Twins come back to the Dome to start their typically healthy inter-league diet. This year should be no different, as the series starts with the disastrous Washington Nationals whose best news is that Jesus Colome is actually a useful 7th inning reliever. The pitching matchups for the series include… oh, who cares, nobody knows any of Washington’s pitchers anyway.

The Big Picture

Even if 5-1 seemed within reach, a 4-2 week is a step in the right direction for a team that was struggling through some early doldrums while two divisional opponents got red hot. Detroit and Cleveland have cooled each other down to some extent, letting the Twins get as close as 2.5 games to second place at one point. They finish the week 3.5 back, but with a chance to continue making up ground. It looks increasingly difficult to get past both Detroit and Cleveland, but luckily, only one of them needs to fall. The main obstacles to winning the Wild Card will probably be Oakland (once they get healthy and start living up to their run differential), New York (once they bounce back, unless that bounce is of the dead cat variety), and Detroit, making the divisional games with Leyland’s squad vitally important. The Twins won’t see them again until the last weekend in June. Until then, it’s NL slaying time.