September 05, 2006
Twins Concerns
Nick and Nick are happy to see the Twins in the wild card lead but are concerned about the offense:
It's always nice to see a victory, but troubling trends continued for the Twins. All their run production in the game came on one swing of the bat from Rondell White, who drove a two-run homer into the left field seats in the seventh inning. That is not exactly unusual for the Twins as of late. In their last eight games, they have scored 17 runs (ick) and 12 of those have come in on home runs. What that tells us is that the offense is not putting rallies together, and the so-called piranha hitters are not doing their jobs. Of course it doesn't help that Luis Castillo has been hurt and just returned to the lineup yesterday, but Nick Punto is slumping (.130 average over the last week) and Jason Tyner continues to do nothing but hit singles (has not drawn a walk since August 8; has just four extra-base hits in 166 at-bats this season). And then there's Joe Mauer, who collected a couple walks yesterday but went hitless, dropping his average to .346 on the season. Now, it's hard to complain too much about a guy with a .346/.427/.498 line on the season, but Mauer is slumping at just about the worst possible time and I think his impact on this offense is becoming very clear when you look at how badly the team is struggling to score runs without him getting on base.
The Twins offense is playing a very symmetrical season. Cold in April and September, very good in May and August, and red hot in June and July. April was probably the anomaly, and there should be enough offense from others even if Mauer is tiring down the stretch.