July 15, 2010: The Twins Turned Into The 1927 Yankees

The Twins are 40-16 since the All-Star break. That is a .714 winning percentage. The same one the 1927 Yankees had. They were 110-44.

The Twins also did this without Justin Morneau. He has not played at all during this run. He played 81 games and had a WAR of 5.1, still tied for 8th best in the league right now (from Baseball Reference). His 179 OPS+ would be 2nd in the league to Miguel Cabrerra (181) if Morneau still qualified. Morneau had the following AVG-OBP-SLG: .345-.437-.618.

In the 2nd half, Jim Thome has had an OPS+ of 222. In 1927, Ruth had 226 and Gehrig had 221. Since the break, his AVG-OBP-SLG: .308-.444-.738. His OPS+ for the whole year is 173.

Joe Mauer has also picked it up, raising his OPS from .792 in the 1st half to .977 in the 2nd. One player who has seen increased playing time is Danny Valencia. He had only 58 AB in the 1st half with an OPS of .720 while in the 2nd he has had an OPS of .830 in 173 ABs. Another big jump comes from J. J. Hardy, who saw his OPS go from .607 to .837.

There were more details in yesterday's post on how the team performed in both halves.

But here are the ERAs of the Twins five starters, 1st half and 2nd half:

Pavano: 3.58-3.29
Baker: 4.87-4.03
Liriano: 3.86-2.41
Slowey: 4.64-3.47
Blackburn: 6.40-3.26

Brian Duensing made no starts in the first half. But 9 of his 11 games in the 2nd half were starts while compiling an overall ERA of 2.25. His OPS allowed as a starter is just .606, even better than as a reliever, which was .617.