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  Kyle Gibson gives the Twins a surprisingly strong No. 3 starter. Photo credit: John Gilbert

Major League Baseball saved its best surprise for last for the Minnesota Twins. All season long, Twins fans have held their collective breath to see whether the Twins could hang in there as a contender in the American League Central, and for the last week or two the question is whether the Twins could hold off a group of three or four challengers for the second Wild Card position.

What none of us anticipated was that all those challengers would fall flat on their collective faces, and virtually gift-wrap the position for the Twins.
 Not that it was ever going to be easy. When the Twins lost three straight to the Yankees in New York a week ago, things looked desperate. Then they swept four games in Detroit, and while they were doing that, to raise their record to 82-74, the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim, the Twins closest competitor, lost seven out of eight to drop to 77-79 - two games below .500 and five games behind the Twins. Similarly, Tampa Bay, Kansas City and Texas all dipped to four games below .500 with identical 76-80 records going into Tuesday’s play.

The Twins played at Cleveland Tuesday night to open a three-game series, after which they come home to face Detroit for three more - and that’s it. A day after the regular season ends, the Twins will go to New York to face the seemingly unbeatable Yankees in a one-game, winner advances loser goes home Wild Card playoff game. If that happens, the season-long domination by the Yankees over the Twins will mean nothing. One game, Ervin Santana pitching, and the Twins could make up for a lot of headaches at the Yankees expense.

Reasons for the Twins strong second half have been thoroughly discussed, but here are some interesting facts that best explain how a team, whose management traded away a solid starting pitcher and an All-Star reliever, could rise from such a discard pile to where they are.
Joe Mauer’s season is most incredible. Mauer hit .225 for the month of April, then .346 for May, .287 for June, and .262 for July. That gave him an overall .286 average pre-All-Star game, but since the All-Star \game, Mauer has hit .333 - including a .336 clip tdhrough August and .367 through September. That means he has hit .350 for the months of August and September.

Eddie Rosario has been remarkably consistent, hitting .287 befor eth eAll-Star game and .287 after it as well, but most newsworthy are other startling upsurges. 
Kennys Vargas was up and down most of the season, but when Miguel Sano went out, he came up to stay and went from hitting .226 through August to .440 for September. Jorge Polanco was hitting so poorly we weren’t sure if he should be up with the big club, either, dropping from .203 in June to .078 for July, but when Sano went out, Polanco moved into regular status and hit .373 for August and .282 for September, often batting third behind Brian Dozier and Mauer.

Dozier is hitting .262, but rose from a .240 July with 34 strikeouts to a stirring .319 in August, reducing his strikeouts to 22. He’s dropped back to .253 for September, but is always dangerous to hit the ball out of the park.
Eduardo Escobar has become a fixture at shortstop, while Polanco replaces Sano and is .267 average, and while Escobar is hitting .250, he has 20 home runs, surprising even himself.
The biggest remaining puzzle is center fielder Byron Buxton, who is at .253 after rising from a meager .213 first half to hit .304 through the second half. Buxton was .147 through April with 29 strikeouts, 2.54 for May with 25 strikeouts, .184 for June, with 26 strikeouts,and then suddenly .387 for the month of July with only 8 strikeouts. He followed that with a .324 August, although his strikeouts rose to 27, and .274 for September with 29 strikeouts. That leaves Buxton at .253 for the season, but that is far above and beyond what we anticipated for him when he was struggling to get above .200 halfway through the season.

Max Kepler has dropped off, from a solid .266 halfway through to a .212 secxond half and a .244 season average, and Robbie Grossman dropped from .256 in the first half to .236 the second, while Jason Castro slid from .248 first half to .223 second half.
But the Twins appear to be having a good time, enjoying each other’s success and pulling together through the second half. Ervin Santana and Jose Berrios have been a strong 1-2 on the mound, and the bullpen remains an inconsistent patchwork, compared, for example, to the triple-digit group the Yankees can summon in late innings.

Quarterbacks Overrated?

Last Sunday’s superb performance by Case Keenum at quarterback for the Vikings blew away all the projections of doom and gloom with Sam Bradford slow recovering from a knee injury. Keenum, the subject of scorn after starting in the loss to Pittsburgh, was flat awesome against Tampa Bay, completing 25 of 33 passes for a whopping 369 yards and three touchdowns in the 34-17 victory that wasn’t that close. Great as his numbers were, the biggest asset to me was that the team seemed to be in complete, harmonious rhythm throughout.

I hope Bradford returns soon, but Keenum’s play not only makes that less of an urgency, but might give coach Mike Zimmer reason to pause before deciding to not start Keenum.
If you watched any NFL football, by the way, I hope you were as wide-eyed as I was at the performance by the Chicago Bears, who blew the lead then beat Pittsburgh in overtime, and by the Detroit Lions, who, in my opinion, deserved to win the game against Atlanta and should be loaded and ready for the Vikings on Sunday. Also, Aaron Rodgers pulled yet another rabbit out of another hat to lift the Green Bay Packers to their 27-24 overtime victory over Cincinnati.

Just another day in the Black and Blue Division, where Chicago faces Green Bay and the Vikings at Detroit this weekend.