Red-Hot Twins find themselves in surprising position.

            This time a week ago the Minnesota Twins had just gotten manhandled in a four game series against the division leading Chicago Whitesox. With 6.5 games separating the two teams it seemed apparent that this division belonged to the south siders and that they’d be comfortably in the drivers seat heading into the all-star break. Six straight wins at the dome later and the Twins are right back into the thick of things trailing Chicago by a mere game and a half.

            The announced crowd of 31,497 had plenty to cheer about Sunday as they watched the Twins wrap up a 6-0 homestand in very Twins like fashion, again winning with one big inning that sealed the deal.

            This recent stretch may not have already proven the 2008 Twins as contenders but it certainly has proven that this unlikely cast of characters is by no means a team to be taken lightly.

            Coming into to the 2008 season the Twins were picked by just about every sportswriter in America to finished dead last in what was thought as the weakest division in baseball. Two and a half months into the season and the Twins are less than two games out of first, and what’s even more surprising in even better position than the 2007 Twins at this time.

            Now I’m not saying by any means that Carlos Gomez, Delmon Young and Nick Blackburn are making Twins fans forget about the likes of Torii Hunter and Johan Santana, but theses Twins are generating a certain kind of excitement that I haven’t felt in the Twin Cities for quite some time.

            Most of these players aren’t even in the prime of their careers yet, so the fact that they are in a better spot than the much more highly praised Twins of a year ago is something that shouldn’t be taken for granted.

            I know what you’re saying right now, something along the lines of “they’re in second place! What have they accomplished?”

            Believe me I am well aware that the Twins have 86 games left to play and that 40-36 is a record hardly worth boasting about. But that goes without saying that this team is miles ahead of where anyone outside of the organization expected them to be, Carlos Gomez is becoming a Twin Cities star much faster than anyone anticipated, the crafty Livan Hernandez is proving he still has enough in the tank for one more run, and the diminutive Alexi Casilla has recently provided the spark at second base that this team has been missing for years.

            So without further ado the 2008 Minnesota Twins, a team supposed to be in the midst of rebuilding in the midst of a race for a division title. So how likely do I think it is that the Twinkies can turn this run into a division title? I’d say about as likely as Gomez hitting a bunt single in his next at bat.