There was much hubbub about the Twins winning 20 games in May and exiting the month with the best record (barely) in the American League. Paul Molitor made a joke Sunday about Monday being May 32.
And then Monday turned into a rainout in Boston, and the Astros won, so now it's Houston that has the best record in the American League. Which is also a "how the lowly have risen" story, considering that the Astros have had a worse record that even the Twins each of the past four years.
Having the best record on June 1 or June 2 is better than not having the best record, but it's also irrelevant. Just one of the six division leaders last June 1 actually won their division title (that was Detroit), although two others did win wild card berths. We're roughly a third of the way through the season already, so it's no longer early, but there's still a lot of baseball to be played.
Dick Bremer spent a good bit of time on recent broadcasts complaining of a lack of national attention paid to the Twins. The post-game stories after Sunday featured quotes from players about shutting the stat guys up. Both would do well to let it lie.
There's better reason to think the Twins record a fluke than to regard it as an accurate depiction of how good they are. The linked-to piece (by Dave Cameron on FanGraphs) is a sign that, no, the stat guys aren't shutting up. More important, the numbers underlying the Twins gaudy won-lost record aren't shutting up. The Twins are tied for fourth in the AL in runs scored, but they are 11th in on-base percentage and slugging percentage. These figures do not match.
But this is also a significantly different lineup now than it was in April -- no Kennys Vargas, no Oswaldo Arcia, Danny Santana going from getting the most at-bats in the lineup to the fewest -- and it's fairly easy to imagine further personnel changes before season's end.
The early wins are in the books. Now they can try to get the middle season wins.
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