Could this be one of those magical years?
The Minnesota Twins have raised a few eyebrows and lifted the hopes of some area fans with a phenomenal start to the season. As of today, the Twins own the best record in major league baseball.
However, it is also still May and this is a Minnesota professional sports franchise. That’s why the national media has yet to give the Twins a lot of attention and even some of the most die-hard fans are still not predicting a run to the World Series.
To be sure, these Twins have provided plenty of highlights over the first third of the season. They are not only winning, they are winning by lopsided margins (they have the largest run differential in major league baseball by a healthy margin), and they are knocking the ball out of the park (they already have more home runs in the first two months than a pair of past Twins squads had in an entire season).
The pitching seems to be more than adequate for now, although maybe not quite at the elite level needed to win it all. A trade deadline acquisition could change that easy enough, though.
Now, we have all seen how these movies tend to end. How many times have the Vikings gotten off to a 5-0 start only to come up short in the playoffs or miss the post season entirely? And remember when the Timberwolves were supposed to be relevant with the addition of Jimmy Butler and a cast of up and coming standout players? We saw how that played out.
The calendar still reads May as of today, so there is a lot of baseball left this season. However, when you watch the Twins this year, they look just a bit different than they have in a while. They are getting contributions from a variety of players and have found ways to win games they probably would have lost in the past.
What is really hard to rationalize is how these new-look Twins no longer have the household names of Joe Mauer, Brian Dozier, Eduardo Escobar and manager Paul Molitor like they did last year at this time, yet are actually better. Last year the Twins were sellers when it came to the trade deadline, but it certainly appears that this summer the squad will be buyers.
And if the current trend continues, a lot of people will be buying into the Twins chances of turning a magical season into their first World Series title since 1991.