Speaking of Sports

By John Fragodt, Sports Reporter

I had high hopes for the Minnesota Twins this year, especially when they got off to a great start and took the early lead in the AL Central Division.  Well, despite going into the All-Star break a half-game behind the Cleveland Guardians, the Twins opened up the second half of the season with three-straight wins over Oakland to take a 2 1/2-game lead nearing the 100-game mark of the season. 

Even though the Twins have maintained the division lead for most of this summer, the season has not gone at all like I had envisioned.

With Carlos Correa, Byron Buxton, Max Kepler and Jorge Polanco as the leaders, I figured we had some established stars that the rest of the team could build around.  And then, the Twins went out and got some other players, like Joey Gallo, Michael Taylor and Donovan Solano; players that had proven track records for MLB teams.

Well, Polanco, who has played in only 30 games this season, started the season on the injured reserve and Kepler (.209 batting average) wasn’t far behind.  Correa (.232) and Buxton (.199) could just as well have been on the injured reserve with the way they started hitting to open up the season . . . but somehow, the Twins stayed in first place thanks to the play of their pitching staff and some unknown players, including Royce Lewis, Alex Kirilloff, Edouard Julian, Ryan Jeffers and Kyle Farmer.

Speaking of Buxton, who slipped under .200 with a strikeout in his last at-bat, Sunday, what kind of Major League player is honored and highlighted the way he is for just playing designated hitter and hitting below .200?  Yes, Buxton, the heralded outfielder for the Twins, has not played the outfield this season and isn’t expected to.

Instead, he takes the place of other players who could do much better at DH just to give Buxton something to do.  It was only a few years ago when I thought Byron Buxton and Miguel Sano would be future Hall of Fame players.  Now, Sano is gone and Buxton is only a fraction of what I thought he would be.

Correa meanwhile, is a gamer who doesn’t complain but just keeps playing as hard as he can.  He doesn’t like to take any games off.  He struggled early this year and his batting average slipped under .200 (batting .185 on May 9), but recently, after moving into the leadoff role with the Twins, he is on a tear and is back to .232.

Thank goodness for the Twins’ pitching this season though as the Twins’ pitching staff has a team ERA of 3.72 with Joe Ryan (8-6 record), Bailey Ober (5-4), Pablo Lopez (5-5) and Sonny Gray (4-3) leading the way.

Close losses are hurting the Twins this year.  The Twins were 48-46 as of Monday morning and 15 of those losses were by one run and another nine losses were by two runs.  Yes, over half of the Twins’ losses were by one or two runs.  

The Twins have also failed to take advantage of their games with Detroit and Cleveland this year, going 3-4 vs. the Tigers and 3-4 against the Guardians.  The Twins play the Guardians and Detroit Tigers six more times each the remainder of the season.

It certainly doesn’t hurt the Twins to be playing in such a terrible division, but you can’t expect that to continue in the second half of the season especially with the way the Cleveland Guardians started playing going into the All-Star break.

About the only good thing for the Twins is that they are 4-3 against the Yankees this season, winning the season series against New York for the first time in many years.  

Yes, the Twins won’t be one of the wild card teams this year, but if they can put together a decent second half to their season, the Twins could win the division and who knows what can happen once they’re in the playoffs?