I don’t quite get this: The Twins have two guys in the AL top ten in home runs, RBI, and slugging percentage. They have a leadoff hitter who is eighth in the league in batting average. The club is second in the American League in fielding percentage, fifth in team ERA, fifth in RBI, fifth in hits, sixth in batting average, and sixth in on base percentage.
Their two-time Cy Young award-winner is tied for fifth in wins, and 12th in ERA. There are two guys in the bullpen –Neshek and Guerrier– that have allowed fewer walks plus hits per innings pitched than Santana.
The team’s starting catcher and reigning batting champ goes on the DL, yet his backup is hitting .306.
Hunter and Morneau are all over the AL leader board –Morneau is second in the league in home runs, ninth in RBI, and tied for sixth in runs scored. Despite Alex Rodriguez’s ridiculous April, Morneau now trails him by four home runs, and Hunter has crept within three for the league RBI lead.
Yet despite all these positive numbers the Twins are 22-24 and in fourth place (six-and-a-half back) in the Central.
I’ll let KRS-One pose the million-dollar question: Why is that?
The knee-jerk answer: it’s the piranhas, stupid.
Or consider this: the troika of Ponson, Ortiz, and Silva –all of them question marks coming out of spring training– have combined to go 7-14.
Or this: the Twins are 13th in the league in home runs (Morneau and Hunter have combined for 25 of the team’s 35 homers, and Morneau has hit six of his in three games).
Of course you could take the glass-is-half-full approach and conclude from all those numbers that the Twins are a lot better than they’ve played so far.
You could also decide that with one more injury or a prolonged slump from one of the stars and this team is going to be lucky to win 80 games.
I’m an optimist, though, so I’m going to go with that first scenario until the Twins have kicked me in the kidneys so many times that I’m pissing blood.
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