Minnesota Twins

The Twins were hoping to salvage game three of their series in Anaheim against the LA Angels. Instead, the Twins got another poor start and the bats were shut down. In fact, the bats managed to do nothing. Jered Weaver, one of baseball's best starting pitchers, threw a no-hitter against the Twins.

The Angels won the game 9-0, but Weaver kept Twins fans interested in the game with his efforts. In fact, he kept the national television audience on their toes.

In the eighth inning, Trevor Plouffe hit a home run ball that landed just foul. In the ninth, Jamey Carroll hit a deep fly ball to left. Denard Span was called out on strikes. Alexi Casilla drove the first pitch he saw from Weaver to deep right field, but Torii Hunter tracked it down, ending Weaver's first career no-hitter. ...

Original post from North Dakota Twins Fan
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On Monday night, Ryan Braun put together an amazing offensive performance by hitting three home runs and adding a triple in another one of his at-bats. It was a historical night at the plate but there have been some even more historical nights in the long history of baseball. ESPN's SweetSpot Blog put up a vote of some of the greatest offensive nights in history. The leader in the clubhouse as of last night was Shawn Green and his 6-for-6 night with four home runs, a double, six runs, and seven RBI. It still stands as the MLB record for most total bases in one contest.

This got me thinking about some of the best offensive performances in the history of the Minnesota Twins. Much like the SweetSpot post, these will only be regular season performances because the postseason is an entirely different story.
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I’m not particularly fond of how Minnesota treats its sports stars. The Puckett-like love affair is rare. More often, we pick nits. Kevin Garnett doesn’t score enough, or isn’t clutch enough. Joe Mauer doesn’t hit for enough power or doesn’t show enough leadership. Fran Tarkenton can’t win the big one, Harmon Killebrew is too quiet, Rod Carew is self-absorbed … the list goes on and on.
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If I’d told you before the season started that, 20 games in, Denard Span would have a .386 OBP, Joe Mauer would be hitting .329 and Justin Morneau would have an IsoP of .236, plus newcomer Josh Willingham would have a 1.114 OPS, what would you have expected the Twins’ record to be? Better than 5-15, I hope.

There are a lot of reasons why it is that poor, and some of them are not easily solved, but I don’t believe the offense is one of them.
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You are walking down the street on this Friday afternoon when you bump into something. You look down and notice that you just kicked a lamp of some sorts. You reach down and notice that it's quite dirty, so you start to rub it and notice that it is quite shiny. Suddenly, smoke starts coming out of the lamps opening and POOF! A magic genie is kind of floating in front of you. At least you hope it is a magic genie because otherwise the guy standing in front of you is a little scary.

But anyway, it is a magic genie and he says to you, "Your wish is my command. I can give you three wishes."

Because you are such a big Twins fan, your first wish is to become the GM AND Manager of the Minnesota Twins for one day. Voila! Suddenly, you're sitting in the GMs office at Target Field, wearing your Twins uniform with a lineup card in front of you and a cell phone, ready to make transaction.
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Much has been made recently about the boo birds in Target Field singling out Joe Mauer while he’s up to bat. It is somewhat hard to understand this early in the season while he’s actually performing pretty well from a grand scheme perspective, batting .319 with a .410 On-Base Percentage.

He’s played in every game, has knocked in some runners, and has even hit a HR over the limestone wall in right field.

But people’s eyes (including mine) are seeing something different, and that’s a lack of production in big moments and late in games. Hence the boo’s.
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