Out to sea, and other excuses…

I have been away from the blog for a couple of weeks, so to those of you who come to the site looking for new information and intresting stories about the Twins, I appologize. Luckily we have several other excellent bloggers here on the Pond to keep the page fresh, a big thanks to Eric and Nate for keeping this place afloat during the month of May.

Where have I been? Motoring around the Caribbean with the Coast Guard, interdicing narco-terrorists and stemming the flow of illegal drugs and weapons into the United States. Hopefully you’ll accept that as a valid excuse for my absence from the blog-o-sphere.

The Twins, on the other hand, haven’t gone anywhere in my absence, although they have managed to string together the longest win streak of the season, currently at 5 games.  And during that same time frame the Tribe has lost 5 straight getting the Twins a little closer to the top of the division.  At 11.5 games back the Twins are, by no means “back in the race” but after last night’s game Matt Tolbert had the following to say “It feels more like last year, where we felt like we knew we’re gonna score runs, we knew we’re going to pitch well and we knew we’re gonna win. And that’s what the last five games have felt like.” My brother Eric (@ERolfPleiss) tweeted to me yesterday “one more sweep and we’re back inside of 10 games, that doesn’t even seem fair.”

10 games is a lot of ground to make up, but there is a lot of baseball left in the season, and the Twins have to get healthy eventually, right?  I picked the Twins to win the division this year, and while that seems like a stretch right now, a few more streaks like the one we’re on right now and they’ll be right there as the season winds down.

Alexi Casilla has continued to swing a hot bat and has gotten his BA back up over .250 and if nothing else has guaranteed himself more time in front of Twins fans.  The Love/Hate relationship with Alexi continues!

Cuddyer has also been on the up and up while I’ve been out to sea.  Cuddy hit .300 in May with 9 RBI and already has 4 more this month to go along with a couple of homers to go with his .280 BA so far in June.

The influx of young talent on the field and in the dugout this year for the Twins has been substantial.  The Twins have already seen 12 players go on the DL and have had a major league leading 38 different players on their 25-man roster.  While most of the young players have struggled mightily this season, those of us who have been watching closely are starting to notice the young stars making big strides as they continue to get big league experience.  Ben Revere has hit safely in his last 9 names with an AB and getting a guy with that kind of speed on base has been fun.  Man that guy is FAST!

Here’s to hoping the Twins can continue to get healthy and that their young talent continues to develop.  11.5 games back and counting… keep the faith.