The Twins are legit

The Twins started off this season pretty well, but in mid-April they hit a speed bump and lost 3 of 4 at home to a pretty bad Toronto team to fall to a rather blah 9-7.

This seemed especially damaging considering what lay ahead. Of the next 19 games, 13 would be the Astros(home and away), plus a road trip to the house of horrors Yankee Stadium, plus 3 more in Toronto, where at least in recent history the Twins have been almost as bad as New York. Now yes, they had 6 games against Baltimore in there too to lessen the blow, but again, this was a team that had just been embarrassed at home by a bad Toronto team.

As a Minnesota sports fan I couldn't not go into worst case scenario territory. Would this Twins season implode just like 2018 did at almost the same time on the calendar?

Instead of imploding though, the Twins held serve. In fact, they more than held serve. They finished this 19 game stretch 14-5. Even taking out the sweeps of the Orioles they went 9-5. They come out of a stretch of games that have crushed past Twins teams not only okay, but with the best record in baseball.

They had some of the usual New York crap, but at least got a game. They also only won once at Houston, but played well and then took 3 of 4 from them back here. Then they just obliterated the Blue Jays.

It's still just the first half of May, and we've seen Twins teams fall off recently(in 2015 they had the best record in the AL in early June and missed the playoffs), but just by the eye test this looks a lot more sustainable.

This Twins team is getting just about everything they need to in order to win a division and maybe even be an October factor.

The lineup is formidable. They are hitting homeruns at a franchise record pace. Polanco is amazing. Rosario has slumped a bit but leads the AL in dongs. Cruz is mashing. Buxton is a doubles machine. The lineup is so deep. Even Jason Castro is smashing the.ball lately. Hell, even Ehire freaking Adrianza took Verlander deep.

The starting rotation has been WAY better than expected. Berrios is well on his way to another all star appearance. Jake Odorizzi is looking like the guy we THOUGHT we were getting last year. Gibson seems to be coming around a bit. And Martin Perez is basically shoveling crow into my mouth. I thought giving him a guaranteed major league deal was absurd, but he is 5-0 and has been just fantastic since joining the rotation. Only Michael Pineda isn't pulling his weight so far.

The bullpen is still a weak link, but as the starters have surged this has been less of a thing. It sure helps to only need 3 or 4 innings from them per game.

Meanwhile the Indians are still close behind, but they are having all sorts of injuries to their pitching staff, and you have to wonder if they can hang with the Twins all summer.

The Indians are kind of in sellers mode anyway. The Twins will be buyers in July, particularly when it comes to the bullpen. Plus, Miguel Sano is looking sharp as he works his way through a rehab. Imagine if we get anything close to optimal Sano to slot into this lineup that is already killing it!

And the Twins have already ticked off a lot of the toughest games on the schedule. They have played only 4 games against the Tigers, Royals and White Sox. They really have a chance to blow this division race open.

This really could be quite a summer.