The Twins have an off day today… The Twins will need to cherish this day — their next day off will be in a week when the Twins finish a 6 game road trip that includes the Oakland Athletics and the Texas Rangers.

Given the Twins current 9-10 record, Twins faithful can be fairly optimistic during these next 6 games. For the most part this season, our ballclub has navigated its way through what would typically be considered a tough schedule. If the Twins would have found a way not to blow those two games last week against the Tigers, their record would be 11-8. That would be VERY respectable considering that they had played the Angels, White Sox, Tigers and Indians. Three of those four teams will have a strong shot of making a playoff push this fall.

The next 6 games are winnable for the better than expected Twins. If the Twins can take both of these series, they could end their road trip with a 15-9 record which would be MUCH better than most of the talking (blogging) heads would have thought.

The first month of this season has been very interesting. A few thoughts on the progress thus far:

1. Starting Pitching - This has been much better than I would have anticipated. Livan Hernandez has shown that he does have something left in the tank and Scott Baker has been reliable. The biggest surprise has been the emergence of Nick Blackburn. He has been very sharp in his first 4 starts. While his record doesn’t seem special, he has lowered his ERA to 2.49 runs/game. He now leads the Twins in this category.

2. Power? We don’t need no stinkin’ power! - Only 9 homeruns…. If Harris wouldn’t have hit one yesterday, the only guys who sniffed a four bagger have been named Morneau and Kubel…

Delmon Young? Where you at!
Craig Monroe? Where you at!
Joe Mauer? Enough with the singles…Where you at!

Eventually we’ll need some help from the long ball if we’re to be successful. It’s very hard to manufacture more than a couple runs a game by playing small ball all the time. Someone step up and get the big hit.

3. Go-Go-Gomez - Who thought that you could go on a bunting “slump”. Gomez started out the season on fire. He was changing games with his speed and bunting ability. During the last two weeks however he has been HORRIBLE in that part of the game. He appears too eager to start running down the first base line and as a result is stabbing at the baseball. I’m waiting for Gardy, or Joe Vavra to get through to him that he doesn’t need to rush his bunts. He’s the fastest man in baseball and as long as he gets it past the pitcher he will be successful in his bunt attempts. Nothing is more deflating to see a guy not do the fundamentals when that is all he needs to do to be successful.

4. Utility players - Tolbert and Harris have been great. It seems as if they are always on base and causing issues. They both have that ability to be like David Eckstein used to be… Always finding a way to piss of the opposing team.

Overall i’m optimistic. I know that our chances to win the division or make the playoffs are slim to none but thus far the Twins have been entertaining and if we’re really building for 2010, I like what I see.