It took almost an entire month, but things are finally starting to go well for the Minnesota Twins.
There are a few things to thank for that, not the least of which is the fact that the team has played its last seven games against truly awful ballclubs. The Chicago White Sox might end up being one of the worst teams in MLB history when all is said and done, and the Los Angeles Angels aren't much better.
Wins count the same no matter if they come against good or bad teams, and the Twins winning games that they should be is a great place to start turning the season around. That seems to be what's happening as Minnesota is riding a seven game winning streak into yet another series against the White Sox.
Offensively things ahve started to turn a corner as well. Max Kepler returned from the IL last week to blast Chicago, and guys who had been slumping all season like Carlos Santana and Kyle Farmer are finally finding a groove.
A favorable schedule and some coaching adjustments deserve most of the credit for Minnesota's recent surge. Ask anyone in the clubhouse, though, and they'll thank the lucky sausage that has been with the team throughout this entire winning streak.
Rocco Baldelli explaining the Twins' lucky home run sausage is a vibe the team should keep riding
So the story goes, Kyle Farmer accidentally left a prepackaged sausage on the table of the Target Field clubhouse. Rather than throw it away, David Popkins brought it into the dugout for a game against the White Sox last week and the Twins offense has been unstoppable ever since.
Someone call Ken Burns, he needs to create a new inning of Baseball dedicated solely to the lucky Twins sausage.
It's gotten to the point where the power of the sausage is pretty hard to deny. Minnesota brought it with them for a road trip to Anaheim and proceeded to score 32 runs over the last three games. This comes after the team struggled to score more than three runs across an entire series earlier this month.
Rocco Baldelli addressed the lucky sausage after a 11-5 win over the Angels on Sunday and the whole thing is an entire vibe.
Rocco Baldelli describing the Twins HR sausage and his concern that it has not been refrigerated pic.twitter.com/hWKVR6Mexj
— CJ Fogler account may or may not be notable (@cjzero) April 28, 2024
It's goofy, it's fun, it's nonsensical, but it's also exactly what the Twins need right now.
At the start of last week Minnesota was six games under .500 and trending hard in the wrong direction. The offense was historically bad, and most of the lineup could get a hit if the opposing pitcher had put it on a tee for them.
The sausage is helping the Twins hit but not because it's magical. There's a totally different vibe around the team now and the sausage is the McGuffin helping loosen things up at a time when the season could have taken a turn from bad to worse.
Instead, the team is rediscovering how much fun being good is and just how capable they are of playing at that level. At some point the sauage is mercifully going to be thrown away, but it's legacy is going to live on in the vibes it leaves behind for both a team and a fan base that was struggling to find itself this season.
All hail the magical Home Run sausage.