May 27, 2019

Twins show no mercy against weaker teams. Now, can they beat the good teams?

These are the best of times to be a Twins fan.

After their shutout win over the Chicago White Sox on Sunday, the Twins are now 20 games over .500, 11-1 in their last 12 games and they have a 10-game lead on the second-place Cleveland Indians. They also just completed a second consecutive sweep. Can it get any better? We’re about to find out.

One reason the Twins are riding high is that they are beating up some pretty weak teams. The Seattle Mariners are in a dreadful tailspin, the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim have one of the best players in baseball and still can’t win, and the South Siders are rebuilding. So, it’s no surprise that the Twins powered through all three teams with ease. But now the Twins are going to get their first serious test of the season. First up, the Milwaukee Brewers, who come to town Monday. And then the Twins hit the road to play those sneaky-good Tampa Bay Rays, followed by a road series against the Indians.

The Brewers, like the Twins, can score runs, too, in large part because of Christian Yelich, the defending National League MVP. He’s in MVP form this year, too, with 21 home runs. Meanwhile, the Rays have the best pitching in the American League with a team ERA of 2.97, according to Baseball-Reference.com, and although the Indians are struggling, I don’t expect them to rollover and play dead. If the Twins play all three teams well, they are very much for real.

Michael Pineda gets the ball on Monday.

Extra innings…

-The Twins are 36-16.

-The Twins shut out the Pale Hose on Sunday, 7-0. Eddie Rosario and Max Kepler both hit three-run bombs and Jake Odorizzi improved to 7-2 after he struck out nine over five-plus innings. He also lowered his ERA to an impressive 2.16. Reliever Tyler Duffey impressed as well after he struck out six in two innings.

-Great baseball and good weather means Target Field had back-to-back sellouts, according to the team. About 39,900 attended Sunday’s game.

COMMENTS

Hi, I’m Rolf Boone, Twins fan.

I became a fan of the Minnesota Twins after a friendly wager in the early 1980s. I survived Ron Davis, the meltdown in Cleveland, Phil Bradley at the Kingdome and then marveled at a rising generation of stars and two World Series wins in 1987 and 1991. Brad Radke made the 1990s bearable, while Kirby Puckett’s eye injury, exit from the game and eventual death made it almost too much to bear. The new century ushered in more talent — Joe Mauer, Johan Santana, Joe Nathan, Torii Hunter, Justin Morneau — and consecutive seasons of playoff baseball, followed by consecutive seasons of losing baseball. A winning season returned in 2015. So here we are. Go Twins.