Notes on a (little, but nice) winning streak, with a quick look at the somewhat mind-boggling RBI production of Brendan Harris

After going 5-2 to start inter-league play this season the Twins dropped two disappointing games at home to the Houston Astros to fall one-game under .500 at 35-56 and four games behind the Tigers in the AL Central.

 Since that game the Twins are 8-4 having won four consecutive series, including this weekend against the division leading Tigers, and are now a season-high three games over .500 and two games out of the division lead.

By no means a monumental swing of record but an important stretch of games considering the Twins won three of those four series on the road, something they had done only twice all season.

So what happened to help the Twins get marginally straightened out? For starters a number of players are just hitting better.

Here are the offensive splits with the top line showing stats from June 23-July 5 and the bottom line showing cumulative stats on June 21 after the Houston loss.

I have added comments to some of the players - including the most bizarre set of Brendan Harris RBI statistics ever produced.

Justin Morneau (12 games)

.340 avg./.436 obp./.745 slg.

.320 avg./.393 obp./.575 slg.

Easily the most important turn-around in this stretch, after hitting .220 with one home run through 15 games in early to mid-June Morneau has 4 doubles, 5 home runs and 12 RBI in the Twins four series wins. He has quietly (as is the Morneau way) climbed back into second-place in the American League in home runs (21) and RBI (69).

He will not be on the cover of Sports Illustrated anytime soon.

Brendan Harris (12 games)

.189/.179/.245

.291/.346/.407

Harris has had the most drastic fall in terms of average and OBP during the teams recent success but that beguiles one of the oddest stretches of RBI production in recent memory. Coming into June 23 Harris was hitting .291 with his .346 OBP but had only 13 RBI in 217 plate appearances. Since that time he has gone only 10-53 but has 9 RBI in 56 plate appearances.

Oddities:

1. Three of his nine RBI have come on sacrifice flies (June 24, 25 at Milwaukee and June 28 at St. Louis), and Harris also recorded four of his 10 hits in those three games only one of which resulted in another RBI - an RBI single against St. Louis on the 28th. So, in those three games Harris went 4-15 with four RBI but only one RBI came on an actual hit. These sac-flies also help explain how Harris has his three extra plate appearances though he has no walks and why his on-base percentage is once again lower than his batting average - a freakish occurrence that only Harris seems capable of pulling off for the Twins simply because Delmon Young doesn’t hit sacrifice flies.

2. Of his six remaining RBI one came on a three-run, bases-clearing bloop single with two outs in the second inning against St. Louis on June 27 (Harris recorded another of his 10 hits in that game though no RBI this time). The hit bounced off the glove of a diving Chris Duncan in left and dribbled toward short center-field which should help explain how Harris cleared the bases even though he didn’t make it to second. And another RBI came on a triple (Harris’ first of the year) that followed a Denard Span triple in the Twins 16-inning loss to Detroit on Friday.

In that game Harris went 1-8 with that lone RBI, and scored a run on a Joe Mauer sacrifice fly.

Delmon Young (5 games)

.400/.429/.650

.251/.278/.316

Coming into the Milwaukee series Young had appeared in 47 of the Twins first 71 games producing six extra-base hits and 22 RBI while hitting .253 and taking only five walks. This lead to Twins fans everywhere (including Bryant and I) calling for his head.

Since then Young has been primarily relegated to the bench - in the Twins 8-4 stretch Young has appeared in five games and started in four accumulating only 20 at-bats - but a funny thing has happened: in those 20 at-bats Young has eight hits, two doubles and a home run with the added bonus of his sixth walk of the season. While riding the bench through the teams last 12 games Young has increased his extra-base hits by a third and picked up three RBI and his sixth walk in the process.

Joe Christensen’s article in the Sunday Star Tribune also pointed out that Young may be opening up to his coach’s suggestions about hitting.

Michael Cuddyer (12 games)

.283/.382/.500

.277/.355/.519

Cuddyer is on his way to his second-best season, his 13 home runs are already the third most in his career and only three behind his 16 total from 2007 and he is on-pace to hit for over 90 RBI for only the second time in his career. In this stretch Cuddyer had the second-most extra-base hits for the Twins with 4 doubles and 2 home runs, and also added 8 RBI.

Joe Mauer (12 games)

.318/.426/.341

.407/.475/.727

Hitting only .318 with a mere 7 runs, 3 RBI and 9 walks (2 intentional) in 12 games Mauer continues his historic free-fall as the SI-jinx continues to reverberate.

(Mauer should enter the leader-boards following Tuesday’s game against the Yankees at which point he will lead the American League in batting average, on-base percentage, slugging and OPS)

Joe Crede (10 games)

.267/.283/.444

.226/.307/.446

2 doubles, 2 home runs, 6 RBI

Carlos Gomez (10 games, 5 starts)

.261/.292/.435

.219/.279/.311

2 doubles, 1 triple, 1 walk, 2 RBI

Jason Kubel (10 games)

.243/.282/.405

.312/.373/.552

3 doubles, 1 home run, 3 RBI

Denard Span (10 games) came off the disabled list on June 25.

.289/.373/.378

.291/.380/.386

Span had a slight rough patch after a solid first game back going 0-9 in two games but Span is 12-34 since and has 9 runs, 2 triples, 3 RBI and 6 walks since coming off the DL.

Matt Tolbert (9 games, 6 starts)

.250/.333/.250

.168/.261/.228

1 RBI

Nick Punto (7 games)

.211/.400/.211

.221/.312/.248

It should be noted that Punto is taking a high number of walks (currently fifth on the team with 26) and his one RBI in this seven game stretch was the game winner against the Tigers on Saturday.

Not exactly a foundation to build a house on, but lets not shove him in the crapper, either.

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While none of this means the team is clicking on all cylinders (the White Sox at 9-3 have a better record over their previous 14) the Twins are showing what they can do when their offense and pitching get in-sync a bit, and are also showing that they can win on the road.

One more thing to take notice of is a suddenly solid bullpen.

It will be interesting to see if Bobby Keppel can keep up his stellar start with a 0.00 ERA in 7.2 innings but you add his quality appearances with Guerrier’s 2.58 ERA in 38.1 innings, Dickey’s 2.96 ERA in 48.2 innings (and yeah Dickey got his first loss of the season in that marathon against the Tigers, but the bullpen threw a complete game shutout from the fifth to the thirteenth) and Mijares’s 2.16 ERA in 25 innings and suddenly the bullpen in-front of Nathan is starting to take-on a nice shape.

With the Twins two games back and the White Sox 2.5 games back with just under half-a-season left to play its starting to look like another fun summer in the AL Central.