Lifted from Gleeman:
Lost in the back-to-back ugly games from the pitching staff is that the lineup churned out 20 runs in three games against the Mariners. Since scoring just 3.8 runs per game in April to rank as the league's second-worst offense, the Twins have averaged 5.5 runs in May, 5.1 runs in June, 5.5 runs in July, and 5.2 runs so far in August. Here are the individual hitting numbers for players who've batted at least 100 times since May 1 (sorted by OPS):
PA AVG OBP SLG OPS
Justin Morneau 378 .328 .405 .532 .937
Denard Span 129 .318 .411 .505 .916
Joe Mauer 327 .324 .425 .471 .896
Jason Kubel 253 .282 .360 .518 .878
Nick Punto 131 .291 .341 .470 .811
Alexi Casilla 273 .313 .351 .424 .775
Delmon Young 326 .300 .347 .417 .764
Brian Buscher 126 .308 .333 .419 .752
Brendan Harris 294 .258 .315 .390 .705
Michael Cuddyer 219 .244 .320 .371 .691
Craig Monroe 129 .181 .264 .397 .661
Mike Lamb 165 .253 .291 .353 .644
Carlos Gomez 347 .257 .296 .346 .642
Seeing that type of production from Justin Morneau and Joe Mauer should come as no surprise and Span has rightfully received a ton of credit for his emergence over the past month, but Jason Kubel has sort of flown under the radar. Or at least he did until going 4-for-5 with a pair of homers and a double Tuesday night. Together they've given the Twins four hitters with an OPS between .878 and .937, which goes a long way toward explaining the lineup's extended breakout.Since May 1 there are 15 hitters in the AL who've posted an OPS above .875 while coming to the plate at least 250 times, and the Twins have three of them batting 3-4-5 in the lineup behind a rookie with a .400 on-base percentage who
keeps proving me wrong by
showing no signs of slowing down. Hell, even Nick Punto is back to hitting like it's 2006 again and Michael Cuddyer is
finally nearing a return. Between the strong lineup and shaky bullpen, this definitely isn't your older brother's Twins team.
