Twins win 5th series; no hot starts, no BS, just baseball

Some crazy things happen in April.

It was in April of 2001 that the Twins showed signs of what was to come this decade. An 18-6 record in that first month fueled hope that that 2001 season would be something special.

Minnesota ended up second to Cleveland that year, but it still ended up being the Twins' first winning season in a decade. It was a sign of things to come, but ultimately their 18-6 start was not sustainable.

Helping fuel that start was first baseman Doug Mientkiewicz, who earned his only gold glove and finished 14th in MVP voting that year. Mientkiewicz had a spectacular start that peaked with a .413 batting average through May 12th, with 7 home runs and an OPS of 1.190. Suffice to say, Mientkiewicz didn't sustain that, even though he still had a respectable year: .306/.387/.464, 15 HR, 74 RBI.

The 2001 Twins could not turn a great start into a great season because they relied on ridiculous starts such as that of Mientkiewicz's. But it stands to reason that the 2010 Twins can do just that.

Why? Simply put: because they have won with a strong lineup that doesn't have a hot spot. The Twins won Wednesday night with a 6-0 trouncing of the Cleveland Indians, winning their 5th straight series to start the season.

With possible exception to Michael Cuddyer (batting .344 with 3 HRs), this team is producing at or below what they're expected to.

Mauer is Mauer, batting .346 and being every bit the catcher that Billy Smith locked up for the better part of the next decade.

Morneau has provided exactly what he's always provided. He's been a great clean-up bat much like always, and while his OBP is up around .471 that's more of a team-wide quirk.

New addition Orlando Hudson is a notch below his career average at .259. So, too is JJ Hardy, who is a bit below at .228.

Nick Punto is having a great start at .269, but I am in the camp that is not even remotely surprised by this success.

So there's a quick glance at the Twins' lineup. And while some hitters have no doubt been great, there are no surprises. In fact, the only surprise is that the Twins aren't even living up to their full potential, and in one area in particular: runners in scoring position.

I can't take credit for this idea, so head on over to Andrew Kneeland's blog entry on the topic. The Twins have been historically bad so far with runners in scoring position, far below the league average, the team's average in the last decade, etc. I'll update Kneeland's number since the Twins now have a .705 OPS with runners in scoring position, but as you can still see by his chart, .705 is still a good 150 percentage points below the trend line.

The law of averages would tend to suggest that the Twins will only get better at producing runs. There are even several batters--namely Jason Kubel--who will only get better as the season continues. That poses a question to the rest of the AL Central: How are you going to compete with an 11-4 team that only stands to get better?