If you’re only paying casual attention to the Minnesota Twins this season, you’re probably aware that Joe Mauer is having a tough year at the plate, but that Miguel Sano is hitting the cover off the ball and earning a spot in next week’s All-Star game, where he will join ace right-hander Ervin Santana, whose pitching has made him the best in the American League.

Well, that’s what you get for paying casual attention.
Much like their entire team, individual star players are just as up and down. Sano, for example, was hitting .316 through April, on a tear that seemed to have him headed for a team-leading average. Mauer, meanwhile, had one of the most miserable Aprils in history, hitting only .225 on an 18-for-80 month. But let’s track those two.

In May, Sano was 22-82, a .268 average, and in June, he went a meager 23-98, only .235. Fortunately, he hit a few tape-measure home runs that helped the team immeasurably, but his once-lofty batting average seemed to plummet as soon as it became likely he would represent the Twins in Miami’s All-Star game. Through last Sunday, July 1, Sano was hitting .272 but with 20 home runs and 58 RBIs.

Mauer, after that horrendous April, went form 18-80 in April to 28-81 in May — a fantastic .346 average. In June, he came back down a bit, going 27-94, a .287 mark. If we could remove that horrible April from Mauer’s statistics, he would be hitting .314 for the season. As it turns out, Mauer has risen to .284, the team-leading average going into July.

It’s more of the same with Santana, who was spectacular until his last half-dozen starts, when he has struggled. He still has three shutouts -- best int he Majors -- and deserves to be in the All-Star game. But for the Twins to remain in contention, Santana will have to focus in and return to his previous excellence in the second half. 

It’s impossible to get an accurate take on the Minnesota Twins, simply because they tend to alternate virtually by the week. I joked last week about how the Twins had been swept out of first place by the Cleveland Indians at Target Field, in a disastrous 4-game series that vaulted the Indians from two games back to two games ahead.

Sarcastically, I mentioned that the bandwagon riders were jumping off hastily and moaning that the season was over for the Twins. I also pointed out that in such a long season, if the Twins won a couple games, they’d move right back into contention.
Of course, the Twins then went into Cleveland and swept three games from the Indians and vaulted back into first place. I couldn’t resist gloating a bit about that, but I was honest in pointing out that I also was lucky, because I hadn’t even looked ahead two series to see that the Twins had a rematch series at Cleveland.

That column was no sooner published than the Twins took another twist, ending the month of June with a semi-disastrous series in Boston, and a four-game series in Kansas City. The Twins went directly from sweeping Cleveland to losing 4-1 in Boston, then getting hammered 9-2 by the Red Sox, and finally winning 4-1. 

 A victory in the fourth game would give the Twins an ego-salving split, and they started off with a 3-0 lead, but the Red Sox, who went down quietly against starter Kyle Gibson the first three innings, proved once again that the hard-throwing Gibson needs a new strategy the second time through. Boston got one in the fourth, three in the fifth, and one apiece in the sixth and seventh to whip the Twins 6-3 and take three out of four.

On to Kansas City, and the Twins were full of fire with Ervin Santana taking the mound. The Twins gave Santana a 1-0 lead in the third, and things looked promising against the Royals, who were closing in right behind the Twins, putting pressure on them to right their listing ship.
Wham! The Royals scored five in the last of the fourth as Santana seemed to come unglued after his own throwing error, when he deposited a double-play grounder back to the mound high and hard and into center field. When it was over, Kansas City had whipped the Twins 8-1, and only part of the problem was that Santana gave up 8 hits and 7 runs in 5 1/3 innings.

The bigger problem was that Kansas City’s Jason Vargas was phenomenal against the Twins, stifling them with only 2 hits through 7 innings. Miguel Sano singled home the only run, in the top of the third, and Brian Dozier and Eric Escobar got the only other singles.
That threw the Twins into a day-night doubleheader at Kansas City, and that doubleheader was a microcosm of the Twins this season. First game: Kansas City 11-6 over the Twins; Second game: Twins 10-5 over the Royals. That second game was a beauty. Young Felix Jorge, looking like he might be applying to be clubhouse boy, belied his tender years and made a brilliant start from AA ball.

Jorge gave up a 2-run home run to Eric Hosmer in the last of the first, setting the Twins off with a 2-0 deficit. But in the top of the fifth, Jason Castro, batting ninth in the lineup, smacked a double for one run, then Miguel Sano clobbered a 3-run home run on the first pitch, and the Twins had jumped ahead 4-2.

In the sixth, Castro doubled home Eddie Rosario, and the Twins added another on an outfield error, then Joe Mauer singled to center, scoring Castro for a 7-2 lead.
It didn’t last long, because the Royals got three back in the last of the sixth, as Jorge was relieved. At 7-5, nothing was a safe lead for Minnesota, but Rosario singled home a run, and the Twins made it a 3-run ninth for a 10-5 victory.
Then came Sunday, and once again the Twins could split the series if they could find the wherewithal to win the fourth and final game of the series. And again, they fell short, losing 6-2 to fall into a dead tie with Kansas City for second place behind Cleveland.
 But it was how the Twins lost, as much as the mere fact they lost. Hector Santiago was pitching for the Twins, and we learned something about Hector, who had started off so impressively this season, but has now faltered to a 4-8 record. The plan, in manager Paul Molitor’s mind, was to do everything he could imagine to offset Kansas City’s tougher hitters. That included a shift for Eric Hosmer, who wears out the Twins on a regular basis.

So Molitor shifted his outfield, moving right-fielder Robbie Grossman well over to right-center. Meanwhile, back on the mound, Santiago seemed to be setting his own course. Molitor noticed that he hadn’t hit 90 mph with any of his pitches, which was not good for a pitcher who normally throws in the mid-90s. Made the shift seem even more logical. Pitch Hosmer outside, so he can’t pull anything to right, and get him out with the shift.

Trouble was, Santiago didn’t look around to check his outfield, then he threw Hosmer a slow curve ball, inside. Hosmer pulled it. Santiago assumed it was a routine fly out, but Grossman, on the run, couldn’t get near it, and it fell for an RBI-hit. A broken-bat single, and it was 3-0. It became 5-0 before the Twins scored.

Molitor pulled Santiago with one out in the fourth, and he wound up charged with 4 hits, 4 earned runs, and the damage was done. Santiago probably didn’t endear himself to Molitor when he said, in a post-game interview with the Minneapolis Star Tribune, “I’ve never been a fan of the shift, especially when you get beat on it. Obviously there are some times when it works out. But I like the old-school way, straight up.”

Probably a rationalization in hopes that nobody might notice he hadn’t been aware of the outfield shift.
That brought the Twins limping home with a 5-6 road trip. Not bad, until you recall they were 3-0 in Cleveland, and 2-6 in Boston and Kansas City. Still, a 25-15 record on the road is outstanding at the All-Star break. Only Houston, the runaway leader of the Western Division, has a better mark at an unheard of 29-9.

Back home, the Twins opened the homestand at 16-25 in Target Field. That is awful, and if you doubt it, the second-most losses at home in the entire American League is Central Division-leading Cleveland with 21.