PHOENIX — The Twins approached the halfway mark in their season on Thursday afternoon, following the conclusion of their 13-6 rout of the Arizona Diamondbacks.
They did so in second place, 7 1/2 games behind the Cleveland Guardians after Thursday’s win, though playing at a 90-win pace after a topsy-turvy first half.
“I think we’ve put ourselves in a good position to go forward,” manager Rocco Baldelli said. “We’ve done everything that we want to do to this point.”
The first half was defined by their streakiness. During their longest winning streak, the Twins (45-36) bonded over a package of encased sausage that provided one of Major League Baseball’s weirder storylines.
After a 7-13 start, the Twins pulled themselves up and rattled off 12 straight wins, during which they rallied around a Cloverdale sausage that was left in the clubhouse by infielder Kyle Farmer, who had done some promotional work for the company last year.
In mid-May, they plunged into a seven-game losing streak, eventually having a players-only meeting in Washington after a 12-3 drubbing.
Other streaks would follow in June — a five-game losing streak, a six-game winning streak. But the Twins have settled in and have been one of the best hitting teams of late.
“There are going to be areas that we can improve on,” Baldelli said. “A lot of those improvements are going to be kind of fine improvements and fine-tuning things and making small adjustments each day depending on what’s going on with individual players and the team. All that’s true. But we’ve been ready to play in the first half, which is mainly what I want to see.”
And yet, they’re still far behind in the division, something that Baldelli said nobody within the clubhouse is worrying about, seeing as it is out of their control.
While Cleveland has been among the best teams in the major leagues, the Twins still are well positioned to make a run at the playoffs, currently second in the wild card standings.
“We’re in a good spot. We could be in a better spot,” shortstop Carlos Correa said. “Obviously we’re not leading the division … but I feel good with where we’re at as a team. I feel good with the strides we made the last mont, and we’re trending the right way.”
Briefly
The Twins will head to Seattle to face the West-leading Mariners for three games over the weekend. The Twins took three of four games from the Mariners when they met last month. … Bailey Ober, Pablo López and Joe Ryan are set to pitch against the Mariners. … The Twins optioned reliever Ronny Henríquez to Triple-A to make room on the roster for David Festa, who made his major league debut on Thursday.
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