Royce Lewis goes to firstplace Twins with top pick.
Top pick Lewis lands with team leading division
The Minnesota Twins got to pick No. 1 overall in Monday’s draft, a consolation prize for having the worst record in the majors last season and ideally a major step toward rectifying that ineptitude.
Except the Twins were sitting atop the American League Central when they chose high school shortstop Royce Lewis.
A year after enduring the worst season in Minnesota history (59-103), the Twins have laid claim to first place for a full month behind the powerful hitting of third baseman Miguel Sano, the masterful pitching of Ervin Santana and a significantly upgraded team defense. After completing a 6-4 West Coast trip Sunday, Minnesota returned home at 32-27, 11⁄ games ahead of 2 the second-place Cleveland Indians.
No team had fashioned the best record in its division while drafting No. 1 overall since the Twins did so in 2001, when they chose future AL MVP Joe Mauer.
“Our faith and desire to improve is what has allowed us to get to this spot,” said Sano, who leads the club with 15 home runs and 46 RBI. “This may not be the greatest team ever, but we’re playing with a lot of heart, doing the little things and giving 100%.”
The numbers say the Twins won’t be able to sustain this prosperity. They have a -28 run differential, the majors’ worst home record (12-18) and the highest bullpen ERA (5.48). They have allowed an opponent to score 11 runs or more nine times, as many as all of last season. At some point, the defending AL champion Indians or some other division foe is bound to heat up and overtake them.
But if that didn’t happen in the next month-plus, Minnesota’s brass will be faced with unexpectedly difficult decisions.
The new front office team headed by chief baseball officer Derek Falvey and general manager Thad Levine arrived in the Twin Cities seven months ago with the intention of building a sustainable winner, a task that figured to take time and call for an influx of young talent at the expense of veterans.
Power-hitting second baseman Brian Dozier and Santana, both under contract through 2018, could be particularly appealing to contenders as trade bait.
Instead, the Twins might have to at least ponder fortifying weak areas such as the relief corps or perhaps adding another starter or a DH-type for a potential playoff run.
Santana, who has increased his trade value with an 8-3 record and 2.20 ERA, can see a number of scenarios unfolding, including the possibility he sticks around as staff ace.
“It depends on how we’re playing,” said Santana, who has surpassed his 2016 win total of seven and leads the league with 4.7 hits allowed per nine innings. “We’re playing well now. We don’t know how we’ll do in the second half. What we need to focus on is the present, then wait to see what the front office decides.”
Players such as Santana, Sano and backup catcher Chris Gimenez say they’re not surprised by the turnaround, but in most quarters it would have been hard to envision, especially considering the Twins didn’t make any major upgrades to a starting staff that had the majors’ worst ERA (5.39) last season.
In addition, Kyle Gibson struggled so badly that he was demoted to the minors in early May, and fellow starter Phil Hughes went on the disabled list with biceps inflammation a few days later.
But new contributors have emerged to keep Minnesota at the head of a division in which Cleveland (31-29) is the only other team playing above .500. Tops among them has been right-hander Jose Berrios, a highly regarded prospect who endured a brutal rookie season in 2016 but learned lessons from his travails.
Berrios, 23, has gone 5-1 with a 2.84 ERA in six starts since being called up from the minors May 13, striking out 39 in 38 innings and looking like the top-of-the-rotation pitcher the Twins have been hoping he’ll become.
“He’s going to be a big part of whatever we have going on here this year and in the future,” Gimenez said. “That’s a special kid right there. He wants to work, he’s so willing to learn and listen. That’s a really good combination.”
Berrios, who had pitched in two World Baseball Classics for Puerto Rico by the time he was 22, repeatedly fell behind in the count during his 14 starts as a rookie, and hitters made him pay. They torched him for 12 homers in 581⁄ in3 nings as he yielded an unsightly 8.02 ERA.
In dissecting his performance during the offseason and again in conversations with All- Star catcher Yadier Molina during the WBC, Berrios learned he had been giving major league hitters too much credit and needed to have more faith in his stuff, which includes a mid-90s mph fastball with cut, a changeup and a sharpbreaking curveball.
He displayed those tools in an impressive May 18 start against the potent Colorado Rockies lineup, throwing 72⁄ scoreless in3 nings and yielding two hits while striking out 11.
“That told me I was at their level,” Berrios said in Spanish. “Last year I was thinking, ‘This guy’s a good hitter,’ and I would nibble, fall behind, then they would hit line drives off me. This year I’ve been attacking hitters from the very first pitch. That’s what I did in the game against the Rockies, and I struck out 11.”
Playing winning baseball has boosted the Twins’ belief in themselves.
Now the question is whether they can sustain their level of play enough to persuade management to buy instead of sell when the trade deadline approaches.