How Do The Twins Do It? - FanHouse - AOL Sports Blog

It's pretty much become a fact of life when it comes to baseball. Every spring as the country prepares for the new baseball season to start, there's word that this will finally be the year that the Minnesota Twins crash back to earth, and finish towards the bottom of the AL Central. I know I've been guilty of it a few times, as I think I've predicted the Twins downfall the last three or four seasons.

Then they usually end up finishing on top of the AL Central, or near it, and are generally always in contention for a playoff spot come September. After finishing last season with a 79-83 record, their first sub-.500 mark in eight years, they lost their ace pitcher and their gold glove centerfielder. Surely 2008 would see the Twins plummet even further below .500, and have them competing with the Royals for fourth place, right?

Nope. After finishing a sweep of the Tigers on Sunday, the Twins completed a five-game homestand against division rivals Detroit and the White Sox with a 5-0 record. As a result, they now find themselves alone on top of the Central, 1.5 games ahead of the White Sox, and are currently the only team in the division who have won more games than they've lost. All this despite the fact they've allowed more runs than they've scored.

How in the hell do they keep doing this? They're the second lowest scoring team in the American League with 124 runs, ahead of only the anemic Royals offense. They're dead last in the league in OBP at .310, and they're 10th in slugging percentage at .374.

Somehow, after losing Johan Santana to the Mets, Carlos Silva to the Mariners, and Francisco Liriano to the defective elbow (not to mention trading Matt Garza to Tampa), it's the Twins pitching that's been carrying them. While Livan Hernandez was supposed to be the ace (of the four main starters in the Twins rotation, Livan actually has the highest ERA, and the highest WHIP, yet leads the team with 4 wins), it's been a couple of young guys you never heard of who have been carrying this club. Nick Blackburn and Scott Baker have been very pleasant surprises for the Twins, and though the bullpen got off to a slow start, they seem to have settled back into their old unhittable ways.

Of course, things could change soon now that Baker may have to go on the disabled list with a problem in his groin (not the kind Viagra or Cialis can fix). There's that old Twins-doubter in me that doesn't think the Twins are going to be able to maintain their position atop the division all season, but that doubter has been wrong a million times before. Plus those doubts came when the rest of the AL Central was actually good. Looking at the way the Tigers, Indians, and White Sox are all struggling to hit as well, the Twins may be better suited to win the AL Central than anybody else.