Maybe it was just these two Jeremy Sowers starts, five days apart. Or maybe it was Tuesday, when the Twins scored five runs in the fifth inning against Chicago to take a 5-4 lead.

It started hitting me that this team has something magic working in the middle innings.

Sowers retired the first 15 batters he faced tonight, just like Sunday in Cleveland. But the Twins eventually won both games.

“The fifth and sixth have kind of been our innings,” Brendan Harris said. “We were a little frustrated, especially after getting no-hit through five.”

I asked Harris if anybody says anything like that on the bench.

“Red does,” Harris said. “He says, ‘Fifth inning’s a mother.’ ”

Mike Redmond said this is indeed one of his mantras, though he warned that I was getting the PG version. His point is that the fifth inning is a huge mental barrier for a pitcher. If he gets past it with the lead, he’s in line for the win.

The Twins are determined to make that difficult.

“For the most part, it usually coincides with the second or third time through [the order],” Harris explained.

I thought I’d make this my game-story angle, until I remembered the Twins didn’t do anything tonight (or Sunday) until the sixth.

They have outscored opponents 80-56 in the sixth inning, but it’s 62-62 in the fifth.

The fifth inning might be a mother, but it was insignificant tonight.

So what happened in the sixth?

“Rally floss,” Redmond said.

Yes, in a practice that dates to 2006, Redmond started flossing on the bench when it was time for the boys to rally against Sowers.

“I broke it out for the first time all year,” Redmond said, rather pleased with himself, as he walked to another part of the clubhouse, with sons Ryan (age 7) and Mookie (5) in tow.

Well … I keep looking for ways to explain this team’s success, and that’s as good as any, as they moved returned a season-high 13 games over .500, at 61-48.

This entry was posted on Friday, August 1st, 2008 at 11:54 pm and is filed under Twins thoughts. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.