Minnesota Twins Player of the Week: Sano Doubter! Mauer Power!
Seven homers highlights a strong week for pair of Minnesota Twins’ sluggers
Mauer power?
Two things fans of the Minnesota Twins may not have thought they would hear as Joe Mauer has not come anywhere near his 2009 form when he hit 28 home runs.
But in just the past week, the veteran first baseman hit four bombs including three straight games in Seattle with a home run.
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Mauer proved to be a pivotal piece of the Minnesota Twins’ offense in a three-game sweep of the Seattle Mariners, going 5-for-12 with three home runs, five runs and five RBI’s.
Altogether, Mauer now has seven home runs on the season. To put things into perspective, it wasn’t until August 8th last season when Mauer hit his seventh blast.
In the past week alone, Mauer put together a modest six-game hitting streak and had four multi-hit games. Overall, he hit 11-for-25 and increased his average by 26 points (.286).
With Mauer’s help, the Minnesota Twins enjoyed one of their more successful weeks, nabbing a victory from the defending World Series champion Kansas City Royals on Wednesday and following that up with a sweep of Felix Hernandez and the Mariners.
Mauer drove in a run on Friday against Hernandez, who was torched by the Minnesota Twins for a season-high six earned runs.
Not since the series against the Los Angeles Angels has the Twins’ offense looked so in sync.
Not to be outdone, Miguel Sano homered for the fourth straight game on Sunday as him and Mauer went back-to-back off Taijuan Walker.
Sano may now be starting to find his power stroke as he’s now hit eight home runs in May after getting off to a slow start in April with just three home runs.
In three games with the Mariners, Sano went 5-for-11, scored four runs and hit three homers, just – like Mauer – absolutely terrorizing Seattle’s pitching.
During their four-game winning streak, the team has scored a combined 25 runs. Mauer has been collecting hits throughout the streak, Sano has been homering and Eduardo Nunez just keeps hitting.
During last week’s Player of the Week, I pondered whether Nunez would be the Twins’ lone All-Star representative and I still believe he has a good chance at it.
But if Mauer’s power numbers can continue to increase and he can bring his batting back above the .300 mark, there may be a difficult decision to be made at first base, which is already a very competitive position for the All-Star game.
Likewise, if Sano wants to get his ticket punched to the All-Star game, it is more likely to be as a Home Run Derby contestant and not as an actual All-Star due to his still very low batting average (.233).
Regardless it is possible that despite a very poor record, the Twins could have a few All-Star representatives in San Diego this season.
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Though again, if Mauer wants to even be considered, he’ll have some work to do but he is definitely showing some signs of life, similar to his run he had in April when he was hitting .321. And if Sano wants in, he may just need to keep bashing the ball into the stands.