Twins Lose

I believe this game illustrated for the entire world what the Twins strengths, historically, have been, and where they fail. Let’s be diplomatic and talk about what the Twins have historically owed their success to. It’s pitching. It has always been pitching. If you look at any season that the Twins have been remotely successful, their pitching has been dominant, with typically at least two fantastic starters and a solid bullpen. The Twins stayed in the game tonight because of the outstanding outing from Nick Blackburn and the continued dominance of young Jose Mijares.
Where they failed was on offense. The White Sox score their runs with home runs (see, Jim Thome) while the Twins make their way with a series of base hits. The White Sox, then, are more offensively capable in big game situations. Think about it. The Sox have abut five or six guys that could hit a home run at the drop of a hat. The Twins had two players with more than 20 this year. In fact, Justin Morneau, the team leader in home runs, would have been fifth on the Sox. The Sox need but one player to have a good time at the plate in order to get a run or two in a close game. The Twins offense, predicated on “small ball” need a string of good at bats in order to score runs. In big games, you can hope for one guy to come through for you, but do you really want to have to rely on several players to come through in the clutch?
The solution isn’t as many people seem to indicate, a new free agent. The components are all there. Joe Mauer, Delmon Young, Carlos Gomez, Jason Kubel and even Justin Morneau are all more capable of at least 10 more home runs in a season. A healthy Michael Cuddyer should be good for 20 or so as well. The Twins coaching staff should be on the hook, trying to improve this facet of the game so we don’t have to rely on slap hitters and luck in the coming seasons.

Congratulations to the White Sox