MVN - Most Valuable Network

Twins’ first half was super

The Twins start the All-Star Break with something to feel good about.

They should feel good based on what they did this season so far.

This has been a fun first half overall. It’s been a great season no matter what happens. This team has performed beyond expectations. If everyone wants to talk about a team overachieving, they should talk about the Twins.

This season was supposed to be a rebuilding year after the departures of Torii Hunter and Johan Santana. It was about the young players learning on the job as the team is building a championship team in 2010, which is the year the Twins open up their new stadium.

The experts thought the Twins would be fighting with the Royals to avoid last place. Instead, the Twins (53-42) are 1 and a half game behind the White Sox for first place to start the All-Star break.

The fact that the Twins are thinking playoffs this season says a lot about the season they are having. It’s a good story. It’s right up with there with the season the Rays are having.

The thought was that the Twins would go on a tailspin after a four-game sweep by the White Sox and the Indians taking the series in that road trip in June. Then, Ron Gardenhire had a talk with the team at Milwaukee, which came after the Twins starters had a conference with Joe Mauer and Twins pitching coach Rick Anderson. The Twins have gone 21-7 ever since.

It helped the Twins were able to get a boost from interleague play, but they sustained their play when they faced the AL teams in the last few weeks. They did not play bad against the Red Sox, and after the sweep by the Red Sox, they responded by taking three out of four against the Tigers.

There is a lot to look forward in the second half.

The hitting should continue to keep up their good play for the rest of the season. There is lot to look forward with the growth of Nick Blackburn, Kevin Slowey and Glen Perkins.

Of course, there are question marks on this team.

Will the starters be good enough to pitch that many innings as the team heads to the dog days of summer?

Will the Twins relievers be good enough to pitch in September? The relievers have been used often this season, and they have had their rough moments at times.

How will the Twins do on the road? They are going to be playing many games away from the Dome in the post-All-Star break. The Twins have been okay on the road so far, but with two weeks of games on the road in August, can they muster enough wins on the road?

For the next few days, it’s about enjoying the moment instead of thinking about the second half.

It’s been fun seeing this team win games. It’s good to know that life goes on even when fan favorites leave the team through trade and free agency.

The best part about this team this year is seeing guys like Carlos Gomez, Alexi Casilla, Denard Span, Brendan Harris, Brian Buscher, Slowey and Blackburn develop into productive players.

A sign of a good year for a sports team is when they are winning and exciting.

The Twins are doing these things, and that’s why this first half has been enjoyable.

The second half can’t come soon enough.

This entry was posted on Monday, July 14th, 2008 at 10:21 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.