The Twins have played 3% of the scripted schedule, and are on pace to eclipse 130 wins, and a meager 32 losses. Not to mention the Twins are well on their way to capture the division title, but would only be slated to the second seed in the conference seeding chart, playing the mediocre, (but good?) Seattle Mariners in the divisional round.

HOLD YOUR HORSES, PEOPLE

Consider this. If the entire season was tabulated in the form of a baseball game, meaning that each of the 54 outs recorded in a game would be translated to represent each of the 162 scheduled games, the Twins haven’t even recorded the second out of that very game. That’s a super complicated way of synthesizing that the season is grueling monster, and that 4 games can't really convey any semblance of what the Twins midseason form might be, much less their state come season’s end. Sample size is a word occasionally tossed around as a gauge to what’s legit or not, and no matter how much of a buzzkill word sample size is, it's a small sample size. You can’t go wrong with 4-1, but playing a awfully decimated Indians club and the tantalizingly pesky and obnoxious, but inferior Royals rosters does nothing in solidifying or cementing our far-fetched hopes to a stellar season.

So people don't get all worked up or hyped that Byron Buxton’s hitting .500, or that Marwin Gonzalez cannot hold the trigger on a curveball for his life, or that Willians Astudillo is current sizing up as the best hitter in the history of baseball, because the reality of it is that these players either scorching hot or ice cold will eventually fall in line with their typical production outputs, UNLESS there's some superior extraneous force that might mitigate someone’s (wink*wink*Logan Morrison wink*wink*) career slashline. Typically in baseball you don’t see dramatic changes in someone’s batting line for example, and prospect development is a great indicator of this, unless there’s a change in scenery, or shift in a regime (managerial usually). Here is one physical scenario.

I wanted to chose someone someone semi-millennial, preferably still active to debate this debate or myth of the hot-hand effect.

*(Statistics calibrated in the American League)

During the 2013 season, Jose Altuve didn’t have a firm-grip in the major leagues. On a rather atrocious Astros club that had stunk for a long time, spanning back to the Carlos Beltran days, they were scuffling and being spanked in the shadows of their unforsaken superstar. Under manager Bo Porter, unbeknownst to the Astros that they would have 2 MVP candidates and Hank Aaron best hitter awards, under their 2013 disposal (JD Martinez and Jose Altuve), they wound up a travesty rather than a juggernaut, drowning under 4 consecutive seasons of sub-60 win play. After Martinez was run outta town, Jose Altuve barely scraped by as a undrafted free agent and frankly played above expectation with all-star accolade to this credit. Nonetheless he hit .276 during the beginning month of April in 2014, pretty accurate representation of his career to that point. From that point on, Altuve wound up hitting a whopping .357, and vaulting his name into the MVP conversation, and having the best batting average, most hits, and 10th best OPS in the AL for what it's worth. A bargain in my boat, for a player that hadn’t exceeded an average above .290 and amassed a 6.1 WAR after a 2013 WAR of just 1.0!

That’s one way you could express how little the first handful of games has on the rest of the season. The Twins postseason road down look as bleak as it did a few years back, however there’s little doubt that the behind the Yanks or Sox, their is a tier of about 3-5 clubs that could contest for the final spot and courtesy to play the latter of the loaded brethren in the AL East. The Rays and Athletics are also both, ballclubs that could collectively catch fire at any point if all things go right respectively, and the Angels aren’t a snooze themselves with perennial sluggers who could easily foil the Twins plan. The final spot should be hotly contested and the Twins need to orchestrate a bunch of runs, and configure somewhat of a capable staff, that has room for improvement. So, if your left partly conforming, or a down the middle perception on this club, that’s okay. I reckon that is the first team in years, that in every department of the roster I could point to that position group carrying the load. The offense is as dynamic and stacked in this century as it ever will be, the starting pitching staff possesses some electric and bat-missing stuff, and the bullpen has the makings of a shutdown backend if things goes according to plan. Not enough yet to be playoff or bust, but something around the ballpark would be fair.

So I caution those jumping on the bandwagon and already scoreboard watching, to take the opening week of games with a grain of salt. So those needless stats of the 1 HR, and the insane 0-fer that Eddie Rosario snapped don’t really have tangible effect through the course of a season. Jose Berrios’s 10k, 7⅔ outing was impressive and all that, but really does it do a testament on Jose’s stuff or really just crucifies how mishmashy the Cleveland lineup is in its patchwork. How many times have we heard that the road to the Twins postseason runs will go as far as Buxton and Sano goes? Well the reality check is, Buxton is showing signs of improvement and candidly is playing as purposefully as I've ever seen and Sano isn’t on the roster. More or less, to the antithesis of Sano’s and Buxton’s liability to this team, is how important the newcomers need to perform to keep this team from falling off a cliff. Is it to early to say, that I sense collapse over the horizon?

Regardless of how explicitly I may tread to heed caution, I can’t even refrain from excitement, myself. What’s for certain though? That this season will go haywire, for good or bad, and whatever of which will only the heighten the scope of interest on this club.

So, (Don’t Jinx it, Don’t Jinx it, DON’T JINX IT) this season gonna be crazy good. The Phillies will provide a great litmus test of superior competition nearing the weeks end, and let’s just hope we give it to them good, and scurry to the Bronx with something more than a .500 record.

From the Outer Galaxy of Fantasy,

Sabir Aden