Time flies.

Game 81.  The season's half over.  How did that happen?  It feels like the season is just getting started.  I'll never understand it when people say the baseball season is too long.  I think the season's not nearly long enough.  The old Pacific Coast League, where they used to play two hundred games or so in a season--now that's more like what a baseball season should be.

So at the half-way point, where are we?  Well, the Twins were defying expectations for most of it, but their recent losing spell has dropped them seven games below .500 at 37-44.  If they did that in the second half, my South Dakota math tells me they'd be 74-88, which would be an improvement, but not a very big one.

It feels like this team is better than it has been the last few years, even if the standings don't show much improvement.  The biggest advance is the starting pitching.  They have one pitcher, Hughes, who could almost be considered an ace.  They have another, Gibson, who has pitched pretty well with the exception of a few starts.  After a rough start Kevin Correia has been decent.  Nolasco has disappointed, but there's reason to hope he might get better.  The fifth starter spot hasn't done much, but a lot of teams struggle with their fifth starter.  The starting pitching has kept the Twins in the game most of the time, and the bullpen, while perhaps not as consistent as one might hope, has been reliable most of the time as well.

We expected the Twins to struggle to score runs.  At the start of the season they defied that expectation, but more recently they've lived up to it.  They're not going to be an offensive juggernaut, but there's reason to hope for some improvement.  Joe Mauer had a disappointing first half, but he's on an eleven-game hitting streak, giving up hope that he will play more like Joe Mauer in the second half.  Kendrys Morales isn't a .215 hitter.  Oswaldo Arcia can do better than he's doing.  If Danny Santana can come back and continue to play well, that would certainly help.

So, it's time to trot out my Niels Bohr quote again.  "Predictions are hard, especially about the future."  The Twins certainly could fall off the cliff in the second half, as they've done in recent years, but there's reason to hope that they won't.  They may not make a run at .500 (although it's possible), but they have a good shot at avoiding ninety losses.  As the George Strait song says, at least it's a start.  It's better than nothin'.

As for last night's game.  Yohan Pino pitched about as well as we should probably expect him to.  He got into the sixth inning and gave up four runs.  I couldn't watch or listen to the game, but some comments in the game log lead me to think his numbers might have looked better with better outfield defense.  The bullpen pitched well, with Burton giving up two runs when he was asked to get five outs in one inning.

Chris Parmelee got two hits, raising his average to .273.  He has a ten-game hitting streak of his own if you don't count games in which he played the field but did not bat, which I assume you don't.  He's raised his average 112 points and his OPS 213 points in that span.  This could be a small sample size fluke, or Parmelee could be developing into the hitter the Twins hoped he would be after his big 2012 season in Rochester.  If he can do that, it would be another reason to hope the Twins avoid another race to the bottom this season.

So, we continue our series with the Royals tonight.  Ricky Nolasco goes for the Twins.  As I've said before, he's had a lot of almost good starts.  He doesn't seem like he's that far away, he just doesn't seem like he's getting closer.  Maybe he will tonight.  In fact, there's no maybe about it.  He will!  We're going to start our season-ending eighty-one-game winning streak!  We'll just have to settle for 118-44!