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Sometimes it’s important to play devil’s advocate. just to reset proper perspective. The strange play of the Minnesota Twins this season has given me ample opportunity to do just that.

Throughout the first half of the season, it seemed important to stress that it was a long season, and the strong start by the Twins shouldn’t get us all lathered up expecting a pennant. After all, the Twins were dead last a year ago.

But the team kept winning, strangely more on the road than at home, and it came time to accept the fact they may indeed make a strong run and possibly win the American League Central pennant.

 Two weeks ago, though, the Cleveland Indians were coming to Target Field for a four-game series that I saw as pivotal to the Twins continuing atop the division. Minnesota led by two games, with the Indians second and on an upsurge.

Sure enough, the Indians came in and whipped the Twins 8-1, then won the first game of a doubleheader 9-3 to tie the two teams for first. When Cleveland won 6-2 in the night game as well, the Twins were suddenly a game behind. Then the Indians also captured the finale, 5-2, when Edwin Encarnacion homered twice in a three-hit performance, driving in all five runs, and the Indians had a four-game sweep.

The fact that the Indians came to Minnesota two games behind, and left two games in front, meant that a lot of Twins Bandwagon fans were suddenly jumping off, and whining that they knew all along the team wasn’t for real.

That set me off last week to write that it wasn’t fair to write off the Twins just because they got swept in that series, because they could bounce back and win a few and get right back into contention. The team did go into Chicago and beat the White Sox twice, but failed to complete the sweep in the worst possible fashion — losing 9-0.

What I hadn’t realized was that right after I had pontificated that the Twins could regain our trust by winning a few games and moving back into contention, they had to go into Cleveland and face the same menacing Indians who had just swept them out of first place at Target Field to become 7-0 at Minnesota.

But sometimes even weird sports columnists get lucky. The Twins went into Cleveland and pitcher Adalberto Mejia, of all people, gave up only two hits in five innings and the Twins stunned the Indians 5-0, as three bullpen denizens yielded only two more hits over the last four innings.

 In the second game, Indians pitcher Corey Kluber struck out 13, but Brian Doziter homered in the seventh to break a 2-2 tie, and catcher-pitcher-and-now-outfielder Chris Gimenez hit another home run in the ninth and the Twins beat the Indians 4-2.

Incredibly, the Twins weren’t done at Progressive Field just yet. Last Sunday, Ervin Santana went out to the mound and reversed a disturbing recent trend by shutting down the Indians for the first six innings of a rather astonishing 4-0 victory.

Yes, the Twins regained first place in the Central Division by sweeping the Indians in Cleveland, with Miguel Sano feeling too sick to play in two of the three games. That sweep gave Minnesota a 23-9 record on the road, compared to 16-25 in home games. That fits in well, too. Any team that can go 23-9 on the road for half a season is clearly a title contender; and any team that can’t do any better than 16-25 at home for half the season is clearly not capable of being a contender.

So pull your cap on tight, the way you might if you were going for a ride in a convertible with the top down, and grab onto something firm. It’s going to be a wild ride in the second half, and this Twins team is the perfect vehicle to take us on the journey.

Legion Tournament

 If you aren’t a big major league baseball fan, and you find it hard to get in a groove behind the Huskies, head on out to catch an American Legion baseball game. The area Legion teams are playing excellent ball, and last weekend’s Lakeview Invitational proved it.

The most pleasant surprise was that four Twin Ports teams gained the final foursome stature in the tournament, with Duluth Lakeview facing Superior and West Duluth Cubs taking on Cloquet. Getting there was more than half the fun.

Lakeview, made up of East players, went undefeated into the semifinals. Pitching depth matters, and the Lakeview team kept sending out guys who could pitch and win. But it was impressive that Superior, Cloquet and West Duluth got past Twin Cities visitors to reach the semifinals.

 The plan was for the semifinals to be played Sunday morning, Lakeview against Superior and West Duluth against Cloquet, then the winners would meet Sunday afternoon for the tournament championship.

That’s when Mother Nature interrupted. It was drizzly and nasty Sunday morning, and it looked like an all-day thing, so tournament officials made an arbitrary decision. They cancelled the semifinals and the final, and said there would be no winner of the tournament.

 I headed to Ordean to catch a semi or final Sunday, and when I got there, about 1 p.m., it was sunny and 60s — not perfect, but close. It stayed that way the rest of the afternoon, but the decision had been made to not play. 

They added that there would not be a rain date, which I thought was pretty stiff. These are four good, local teams and they could just arrange to play sometimes when all four could make it, or just come back for one big day of baseball.