Resurrected, Without Really Trying: Kings Of The Deadball Era

What the hell happened to the toughest division in baseball?

In trading Luis Castillo and otherwise standing pat, Terry Ryan gave every indication that the Twins were ready to throw in the towel on the 2007 season, and the Tigers and Indians have responded by rolling over and playing dead.

And now a team that was facing a nine-and-a-half game deficit on July 23 –a team that has scored fewer than four runs twelve times since the All Star break, a team that’s scored more than four just five times, a team that is 12-10 in the second half– has managed to shave five games off a lead that a month ago Detroit and Cleveland seemed perfectly willing to swap back and forth the rest of the season.

What’s gonna happen when Brian Buscher and Rondell White finally catch fire?

Seriously, how did we get here?

Jason Tyner, forced into regular duty and the leadoff spot, has a higher second-half OBP than Justin Morneau, Torii Hunter, and Joe Mauer, and a higher slugging percentage than Hunter and Mauer.

Johan Santana is 1-3 with a 3.82 ERA since the break. Santana now has nine losses. His previous high in a Major League season was seven, and in his entire professional career going back to the minors he lost eight just once. He’d never before lost nine, anywhere.

After Scott Baker’s gem this afternoon, the Twins have been involved in twelve shutouts this season, and have been on the losing end nine times.

Detroit and Cleveland have been floundering, sure, but the Twins have been able to whittle away at that lead thanks almost entirely to their pitching. The bullpen –with the painful exception of Juan Rincon– has been mostly excellent, and the starters have been pitching exactly like a bunch of guys who expect to get nothing in the way of run support.

That can’t be easy (it sure has hell hasn’t looked easy), and maybe one of these days it’ll light a fire under the offense. At the very least the events of the last ten days have made Ryan’s grease-fire-sale tactics at the trading deadline look all the more ill-advised.