From A Chemistry Lab Deep In The Bowels Of The Metrodome…

Eureka!

Or something perhaps not quite so enthusiastic, but a minor cause for exultation all the same.

And why is that? Because the Twins just swept the Red Sox, yes, but also because we’re finally seeing the version of the 2006 team we should have seen back in April.

Tony Batista was a bust, and is gone (and, sure, I was rooting for the guy, but what choice, really, did any of us have?). Rondell White has been such a bust that he makes Batista’s numbers look almost All-Star worthy. He’ll almost certainly soon be gone. Juan Castro is gone –no cause for any gnashing of teeth there, of course; the guy should have never been given the job in the first place.

It really shouldn’t have been much of a surprise, I suppose, that the Batista-Castro left side of the Twins’ infield ended up being a slightly more benign baseball version of Cuba’s own Batista-Castro regimes.

The Minnesota team that beat Boston was an almost wholly different team from the squad that was frustrating through the first two months of the season, and it’s a team that’s a whole lot easier to root for, don’t you think?

Four players now have slugging percentages of .500 or better, this after finishing last year without a single player within spitting distance of .500.

Rondell White isn’t on that list, certainly, and neither is Torii Hunter. The four players are Joe Mauer, Justin Morneau, Michael Cuddyer, and Jason Kubel. If you wanted to be truly optimistic you could throw Jason Bartlett and his six at bats into the mix.

This is those guys’ team now, and when you toss in Johan Santana, Francisco Liriano, and Joe Nathan, that’s a club that should at the very least be fun to watch most days. And if Brad Radke and Carlo Silva can continue the rehabilitation of their reputations and approach respectability, the Twins might yet be a decent team, not just worth paying attention to, but actually worth paying to see.

If that core group of younger players can continue to gell and demonstrate some consistency in the next month they also might make things interesting for general manager Terry Ryan. What is he going to do with Shannon Stewart when he comes off the disabled list? And will he finally find the nerve to move Torii Hunter and his almost $11 million in salary? What will become of Rondell White and Ruben Sierra?

My guess –and I suppose my hope– is that none of those players will be around by late July. And I think that’s going to make the Twins a better and more cohesive team.