With the first set of interleague games coming up in the baseball schedule this weekend and teams having at least 35 games under their belt, we’re a little more than 20 percent of the way through the schedule, so now is as good a time as any to have an early season evaluation session. TheSportsNotebook takes a concise look at what each team has done and what we might expect going forward.
The Minnesota Twins had been on a roll as baseball’s most overachieving franchise. The team that was slated for contraction in 2002 as part of the last really serious players-owners dispute in MLB, has seven winning seasons in the nine years Ron Gardenhire has managed the club, and six of those have ended with an AL Central division title. And that snapshot doesn’t even include Tom Kelly’s even more successful tenure, with World Series wins in 1987 and 1991. But it came crashing down hard last year, as the club was hit by injuries to key players, and those that were on the field seemed to completely lose the grasp of sound fundamental play, a hallmark of the Twins in the recent era. They finished 63-99. So was that an aberration, or a sign that the old era is ending? TheSportsNotebook takes a look at the 2012 Twins, on the basis of their ability to get on base, hit for power, starting pitching and relief pitching.