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What a Difference a Week Makes

The Minnesota Twins, thanks to a 14-5 record since the All-Star break and Chicago's 8-12 record during the same span, are getting very close to running away and hiding from the rest of the American League Central. Now, those of you who have experienced my incredible pessimism in regard to the Twins over the last two years know that I'm the last person in the world to say something like that, but I think it's true.

I was too busy being giddy about what looked like a third straight division title win over the White Sox to even think about the Indians. I mean, the Twins had been fighting back and forth with Chicago all year, just like they did in 2002 and 2003, and they had surged ahead at a key moment, seemingly putting the White Sox out of reach, just like they did in 2002 and 2003.

Then suddenly the Indians were right there -- two games back. And if not for a surprisingly excellent start by Terry Mulholland and a three-hit game from Corey Koskie yesterday, the division would be all tied up. To say the Indians snuck up on me would be an understatement. They didn't even really sneak, they were just sort of there. Like a car that pulls up next to you at a red light without ever being in your rear-view mirror. And now they're revving their engine, waiting for the light to turn green.

AL CENTRAL      W      L     WIN%      GB
Minnesota      69     54     .561     ---
Cleveland      63     62     .504     7.0
Chicago        60     61     .496     8.0

• Corey Koskie resurrected his entire season. Prior to last week, Koskie had been getting an awful lot of heat from Twins fans for his disappointing year offensively, but as I explained a little while back, even Koskie struggling is far better and more valuable than Cristian Guzman, who has received all sorts of undeserved praise lately.
  
  After the Twins dropped the second game of the first Cleveland series on August 14, Koskie was hitting .234/.335/.440 on the year. Those are certainly not bad numbers for a third baseman, particularly one who plays great defense, but they were quite a long way from the .278/.374/.464 he hit from 2001-2003.
  
  Since then, Koskie has been on fire. He went 3-for-5 with a homer, a double, two runs scored and two RBIs in the final game of that Cleveland series, helping the Twins avoid a sweep, and then went 6-for-10 with a homer, a double, three runs scored and four RBIs in the three-game series against the Yankees. Koskie continued his hot hitting this weekend by homering in all three games against Cleveland.
  
  In the course of seven games, Koskie improved his Gross Productive Average for the season by nearly 10%, finishing yesterday's game with a .251/.346/.490 line on the year. Thanks to his homer binge, Koskie is now the team leader in homers and slugging percentage, and has a chance to become the first Twins hitter to smack 30 homers in a season since 1987.



• The Cleveland offense that had been putting up huge numbers all year was completely shut down, scoring a grand total of 15 runs over their last seven games, all losses. Last week, while raving about the Indians' hitting, I said, "The pitching staff is still not very good, which is part of the reason why I didn't think they'd be a factor this year, but the offense is so good -- leading all of baseball in runs scored, on-base percentage and doubles -- that it doesn't much matter who's on the mound." Of course, it does matter when they're scoring 2-3 runs per game, and the Indians' pitching staff gave up 50 runs in those seven losses.
  
  And it's not like they were facing great pitching. In those seven losses -- four to Minnesota and three to Texas -- the Indians faced the following starting pitchers ...
  
  Terry Mulholland (twice)
  Mickey Callaway
  Scott Erickson
  Kenny Rogers
  Kyle Lohse
  Brad Radke
  
  Those six pitchers have ERAs of 4.50, 7.94, 6.67, 4.55, 5.23 and 3.41 this year, and only Rogers and Radke have winning records.



• The White Sox continued their freefall from contention, dropping two out of three to Detroit and then getting swept at home by Boston. Chicago is now 14-23 since the All-Star break, including 8-18 since coming to the Metrodome for a big three-game series on July 26.
  
  While you might have expected the Chicago offense to go flat without Frank Thomas and Magglio Ordonez, it has actually been their pitching staff that has let them down of late. White Sox pitchers have a 5.00 ERA since the All-Star break and the team allowed 47 runs during their latest six-game homestand against Detroit and Boston. If Chicago continues to play like this, they not only have no shot at making things interesting atop the division, they are in serious danger of finishing in fourth place.
  
  Right now, both Cleveland and Chicago are closer to the fourth-place Tigers than they are to the first-place Twins. The good news for all three teams is that no one is going to "catch" the Royals for the basement position, but here's what the fight to avoid the dreaded "Worst non-Royals team in the division" spot looks like:

  AL CENTRAL      W      L     WIN%      GB
  Cleveland      63     62     .504     ---
  Chicago        60     61     .496     1.0
  Detroit        58     65     .472     4.0

  Obviously part of Detroit closing the gap on Cleveland and Chicago comes from the Indians and White Sox struggling over the last week or so, but the Tigers are playing pretty well too. They are 7-3 over their past 10 games, winning back-to-back series against the White Sox and Mariners.