On May 24th the Twins dropped to 11-34 after a 7-4 loss to the Royals. At that point they were the worst team in baseball by a wide margin. This was their lineup and averages after that day.

Núñez 2B 5 0 1 0 0 1 17 .303 .338 .447

Mauer 1B 4 0 1 1 1 1 21 .270 .381 .377

Sanó DH 5 0 0 0 0 3 17 .219 .321 .394

Plouffe 3B 4 0 0 0 0 2 16 .252 .275 .383

Grossman LF 3 1 0 0 1 1 18 .400 .500 .733

Arcia RF 3 2 2 0 0 1 12 .233 .313 .395

Escobar SS 4 0 3 1 0 0 14 .267 .300 .324

Centeno C 3 0 0 0 0 1 10 .269 .296 .462

This was their lineup and averages after last nights game.

Dozier 2B 5 3 2 3 1 1 20 .261 .339 .499

Mauer 1B 5 2 4 4 1 0 29 .277 .377 .411

Kepler RF 4 2 2 2 1 0 19 .263 .347 .560

Sanó DH 3 0 0 0 2 2 29 .238 .332 .443

Rosario CF 5 1 3 3 0 0 25 .259 .280 .420

Escobar SS 5 0 1 1 0 0 14 .270 .293 .404

Polanco 3B 3 1 1 0 1 0 15 .298 .370 .574

Centeno C 4 1 1 0 1 1 23 .257 .296 .376

D. Santana LF 5 3 1 0 0 0 14 .260 .301 .362

Since that game in May when the Twins bottomed out the Twins are 32-30. There are obvious reasons as to why they have played so much better. We replaced Arcia with Kepler and that has been a huge upgrade. Mauer, Dozier, Rosario, Suzuki, Escobar and even Sano have all raised their OPS by at least 50 points since then. We have gotten slightly better pitching especially from Santana. We replaced the black hole of Jepsen as the closer with the quiet consistency of Kinzler.

I hear a lot of talk about next year. That there is no way that the Twins can go from the 70 wins they are probably going to win in 2016 to 85 in 2017. Your view on that probably depends on which 2016 version is closer to the real Twins team. Is it the team that got off to a horrendous start? Couldn't get a clutch hit to save it's life. If they pitched well they couldn't hit, if they hit they couldn't pitch. If they somehow got to the late innings with a lead the bullpen imploded. I have been a Twins fan for 30 years and can never remember a start to the season like this one. Or are they the team that has played pretty decent baseball for the last 2 months. If you extrapolated their 2 games over .500 over the whole season they would be tied with Seattle and 4.5 games out of the wild card on pace for 83 wins. If the Twins continue to play solid baseball for the final 2 months they will finish with around 72 wins. That will mean they finished 3 quarters of the season with a 61-55 record. I am personally an eternal optimist when it comes to Minnesota sports and that colors my opinions some times. But if they can erase a truly horrific 1st quarter with a very solid 3 quarters I am going to put more faith on the bigger sample size.

There are obviously moves that need to take place for the Twin to contend next year but there is definite hope. Especially when you look at some of the wins over the last month. Taking 3 out of 4 at Texas who had best record in MAerican league at time. Going 5-5 on a 10 game road trip to Cleveland, Detroit and Boston, 3 of the top 5 teams in the American league. Just pummeling Cleveland and going for a franchise 1st 4 game sweep in Cleveland today. Lot of reasons to think the Twins could contend next year.