MINNEAPOLIS _ As evidenced by the return of fans to Target Field last weekend, more people are paying attention to the Twins fattening run differential and their widening lead in the American League Central division.
But there are many who don't take standings seriously until Memorial Day, a checkpoint during the season that's a pretty good indicator of which teams will be a factor in October.
The Twins roared into Memorial Day with a 7-0 win over the White Sox on Sunday. Eddie Rosario hit their 103rd home run of the year. Right-hander Jake Odorizzi won his seventh game, tying his total for all of last season. And the Twins improved to 20 games over .500, at 36-16, while increasing their lead to 10 games in the AL Central over Cleveland.
They have baseball's best offense. They have a pitching staff that has performed better than expected. They have a young core stepping closer to its potential. They have a lineup fortified with professional mashers. And they have lineup and positional flexibility like no Twins team has ever had.
Rookie manager Rocco Baldelli has deftly shuffled the lineup, handled the pitching staff and has improvised through the few injuries he's had.
And with the homer-happy Twins pounding everything they can reach, the clubhouse is believing a special season can be had. After being a wild-card winner in 2015 and 2017, the Twins eye a division title instead of a one-game showdown in the postseason.
"I think this is probably the best feeling team I've been on here," said Twins right-hander Kyle Gibson, in his seventh season with the club. "2015 was a lot of fun, 2017 was a lot of fun, but I don't think we had the everyday confidence that this team does. And I don't think that there was the buzz in the crowd and the buzz around the Twin Cities right now."
On Sunday, an announced sellout crowd of 39,913 _ their largest crowd since Opening Day, 2016 and giving them their first back-to-back crowds of at least 30,000 since 2015 _ watched the Twins finish off an overmatched White Sox squad.
The Twins took a 4-0 lead in the third inning on Sunday, and game felt like it was over. Max Kepler doubled in Byron Buxton, Jorge Polanco walked, then Eddie Rosario belted a Dylan Covey pitch into the right field seats for a three-run home run and a 4-0 lead.
Odorizzi held Chicago to one hit over 5 1/3 innings before he was removed having thrown 93 pitches. Max Kepler put the game away with a three-run home run in the seventh, the Twins' league-leading 104 long ball of the season.
With Cleveland losing at home to Tampa Bay on Sunday, the Twins now lead the division by a whopping ten games. They shut out an opponent for the sixth time and swept an opponent in a three-game series for the fifth time.
The machine is working perfectly right now, as the Twins have established themselves among baseball's elite teams. And they have done it by battering opposing pitching staffs.
"What we have done is tremendous," outfielder Buxton said, "but I know there still is more in the tank. The warmer it gets, the more the ball is going to fly."
