Patience Pays Off

With the exception of Saturday night's abomination of a game, the Twins have generally scored runs and play good, competitive baseball over the past two series. In watching the games, there's one obvious trend that I've been noticing -- the hitters are taking significantly better at-bats. This has resulted in a marked increase in walks. Twins hitters drew seven walks in yesterday's win over the Tigers, nine on Friday night, seven on Thursday, five on Tuesday and seven on Monday. The walks are putting more runners on base and allowing the offense to rely less on unsustainable numbers with runners in scoring position to score runs. As a result, the Twins scored at least six runs in all five of the aforementioned games.

Throughout the month of April, this offense was frustrating to watch largely because they consistently helped out opposing pitchers with poor at-bats and easy outs. We're seeing less and less of that now. Carlos Gomez, Jason Kubel, Mike Lamb and Delmon Young have all visibly improved their approaches at the plate. Joe Mauer continues to display one of the most selective eyes in the league. Justin Morneau is having good at-bats and drawing walks at a solid clip. Suddenly, this offense isn't as ridiculously impatient as it was early in the year, and as a result they have climbed out from last place in the AL in the walks category, having surpassed the Royals and Angels, and they're right on the heels of the Mariners. After posting just a .305 on-base percentage an April, Twins hitters are reaching base at a .339 clip in May.

You know what they say... good things come to those who wait.