Twins make a glorious statement with series victory over Phillies

It's been a streaky up-and-down season for the Minnesota Twins, but they finally made a statement fans have been waiting to hear all season to hear.

The Twins won two out of three over the Philadelphia Phillies, the best team in baseball. Not only did they manage to finally win a series over a team with a winning record, but they did it without three of the team's best players.

Carlos Corera, Royce Lewis, and Jose Miranda are all on the IL and didn't play in the series against Philly. This didn't stop the Twins from outscoring the Phillies 12-9 and stifling one of the best lineups in the league.

Bryce Harper started the series off by hitting a home run in his first career at-bat at Target Field, and then promptly went 1-for-12 the rest of the series. Harper ahd Kyle Schwarber combined for just three hits against the Twins, something that goes down as a massive victory not just for the team but for its struggling pitching staff.

It was an all-around team victory in every sense, and despite some bumps along the way Minnesota made a serious statement about contending at the exact perfect time.

Twins' signature series victory over Phillies is proof of life the team needed

Minnesota limped into the All-Star Break with an ugly series loss to the San Francisco Giants, and didn't start the second half of the season off much better. The Twins came into their series against Philly on a three-game losing streak that included a short series sweep to the Brewers.

Nothing suggested the team was capable of hanging with the best team in baseball, but the Twins pushed back against that so hard it might have put things back on track.

Winning a series over the Phillies is one thing, but to do it without Correa, Lewis, or Miranda is a sign of just how deeply talented the roster is. Guys like Carlos Santana, Austin Martin, and Matt Wallner stepped up to provide huge offensive moments, more than making up for what was missing.

Minnesota had a lineup with Manuel Margot, Jair Camargo, and Diego Castillo in it and scored seven runs against the best team in baseball. It's impossible to overstate the whiplash fans had from seeing the lineup card and then seeing what it did, nor how glorious it all felt.

Perhaps above all else is how well Twins pitchers did against an explosive Phillies lineup. Bailey Ober, Simeon Woods Richardson, and David Festa combined to allow just three runs in 17 1/3 innings of work, with the latter pitching out of a pair of jams in Wednesday victory.

So much has been made about the Twins need to add pitching at the trade deadline, which remains true, but it's hard to not feel a little bit better about the rotation in October after what happened this week.

There's a lot of season left, and a series victory in July hardly equates to a World Series. Still, the Twins proved a lot in a series so many weren't expecting much out of and it comes at the most opportune time. Philly moves on to a series against Cleveland, which means by this time next week Minnesota might finally have taken over first place in the AL Central.

If that happens, it will absolutely feel as earned as it should.

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