The Twins are 20-17 and that doesn’t surprise me. That a 20-17 record is good enough for them to be in first place by 1 1/2 games is the surprising thing.

Who would have known that Detroit would be a box of mismatched puzzle parts and Cleveland would simply stop hitting. (Thanks, Pronk.) I appreciate the good ride that the home team happens to be on, and I buy into the notion that the Twins will be a better team as the season goes on. More injuries or an implosion among the pitchers could make that assessment folly, but I am on the side of the glass being half full with more being poured into it every week.

That being said, I’m amused by some of the positions that people have staked our during the first six weeks of the season. People want more from Joe Mauer even though he’s second in the league in batting average and sixth in on-base percentage. That he’s not hitting any home runs is driving some people a bit goofy.

As someone commented on JoeC’s blog, without irony (I think): “We need Delmon and Mauer both healthy. If we didn’t have both of them in the lineup, where would we get all our singles from?”

Given the Twins’ current makeup, I am perfectly fine if Mauer keeps his on-base percentage over .400 and drives in 80 runs. Whether he hits 1 or 11 or 21 home runs is irrelevant to me. In an ideal world, it would be great if he could hit second, but the Twins don’t have a 3-4-5 in the way that the Tigers and White Sox have them, and a Jim Thome clone ain’t showing up any time soon.

And Morneau hasn’t hit a home run this month. Heavenly bleepers. He’s on pace to drive in 123 runs and hit 27 home runs. I’ll take that too, as well as his continuing improvement at first base. For the record, Kent Hrbek drove in more than 100 runs only once in his career and Morneau’s already passed Hrbek’s single-season high twice in his career.

A guy named Harmon Killebrew had 1,540 RBI for the Twins in 9,462 plate appearances. If Morneau continues at his current career pace, he will have 1,627 RBI when he has the same number of plate appearances. You can dismiss that analysis as simplistic, but my point is that I’m using the numbers to justify that the Twins have an awfully good first baseman who hasn’t exactly better letting them down when the power gets turned off. I’ll take the 7-for-11 and a walk in his last Boston games.

Senor Smoke Free is 6-1. Yes, the Twins have provided him with more offensive support than any other starter in the American League, but 6-1 is 6-1 is 6-1. I’m not sure how you do that with a 3.90 ERA while allowing 83 runners in 57 2/3 innings, but sometimes I don’t ask questions. (Not often, though.) My only quibble with Livan right now is his fondness for sleeveless uniform tops. (That’s the starting pitcher’s call.) Not a flattering look, but if Senor Smoke Free finishes the season 18-10, he can pitch nekkid with body paint pin stripes for all I care. (I’ll be listening to those games on the radio, though.)

Mike Lamb is better than Nick Punto at third, Delmon Young (while maddening to this point) is better than Jason Tyner in left, Mauer ‘08 trumps Mauer ‘07, the DH choice of Kubel or Monroe is better than the options of last season, Gogomez keeps me from thinking much about the guy who used to play center field and Adam Everett simply won’t make 26 errors like Jason Bartlett did last season. Tolbert, though raw, is a better utility option than anything the Twins had last year and Punto, when he’s healthy, should play markedly less than last season. That’s a pretty good list of enhancements and I think that Bill Smith is off to a good start as GM.

The “send ‘em back to Houston” movement regarding Lamb and Everett has been the epitome of shortsightedness and impatience, all the more when it’s suggested that Punto at short and Tolbert at third is a superior combination.

I started the season thinking the Twins would hold up well against most teams and simply be overmatched against elite teams, a feeling that was reinforced when they started by going 1 of 4 against the Angels. But they have handled division rivals well and just handled the Red Sox quite nicely. Even excellent teams have bad stretches — remember that Tampa Bay swept the Red Sox a few weeks back — and I am willing to dismiss the Oakland/Texas trip as one of those inevitable weeks. And management seems to be finally dealing in reality when it comes to the Liriano mess. There’s no reason to give him another chance until he’s both physically and mentally ready to be here, whether that’s in June or in 2009. Unfortunately, at this point Liriano is more fragment than franchise.

Of course, I do have a wish list. I want to see Delmon show some power and Bonser show more consistency, and I want Slowey to be the young stud we hoped for last year. I want Brendan Harris to look more like Castillo around second base and less like me. I want Punto to have 150-200 at-bats at the end of the season and not 350-400. I want Rincon to pitch every night like he pitched last night and I want my skepticism about Jesse Crain to be proven wrong.

A 20-17 pace plays out to an 88-74 record. I wouldn’t have bet you at the start of the season that the Twins would win 88 games. Now, if you buy the improving team scenario, are we being delusional if we start thinking about them winning 90 or more?

other people are here too

This entry was posted on Tuesday, May 13th, 2008 at 8:45 am and is filed under Thoughts. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.