The Twins are an amazing organization. They traded Johan Santana, Matt Garza and Jason Bartlett after the 2007 season, got essentially nothing in return and yet forced a one-game playoff to decide the AL Central in 2008. This year, they lost their superb cleanup hitter Justin Morneau midway through September and responded by playing their best ball all season and forcing yet another one-game playoff.
How do they do it? Well, here is a scouting report on the Twins for the Division Series that offers a few explanations:
REPLACING MORNEAU
Morneau played his last game on Sept. 12, finally giving in to a stress fracture in his lower back. That should have doomed the Twins, who were two games under .500 and averaging 4.8 runs per game. Instead, Minnesota went 17-4 afterward and averaged better than six runs a game. Why? Well, we should stop thinking of Minnesota as just the little engine that could. The Twins and the Yanks were the only two AL teams that had four players hit 27 or more homers with Morneau joined by Joe Mauer, Jason Kubel and Mike Cuddyer, whose move to first to replace Morneau has been significant. Kubel’s pull ability is a factor in hitting the baggy at the Metrodome and the short porch at Yankee Stadium. Also, after struggling most of the year, Delmon Young awoke late to give the Twins yet another power bat.
OK, THEY ALSO STILL
PLAY SMALL BALL
The Yankees actually stole 25 more bases than Minnesota and were successful at a much higher percentage. But the Twins essentially have two different lineups: The one with their power guys and the one with their situational guys such as Nick Punto, Matt Tolbert and Denard Span. That trio will be used to sacrifice routinely. Span will try to bunt for hits, and Punto — according to one scout — loved to try to get bunt hits against CC Sabathia when both played in the AL Central. There is no elite base-stealer on the team, but just about everyone in the lineup will try if you don’t pay a lot of attention to runners. And Carlos Gomez will be used late to either run and/or play defense in center with Span moving to right to replace the defensively deficient Kubel. Gomez will try to steal third if a team does not check him.
A WORD ABOUT JOE MAUER
Five scouts all essentially laughed when asked how to pitch the presumptive AL MVP. Do you pitch him away? He hit his first nine homers of the year to left or center. And as one scout said, “So you think you can go inside, but this year he turned from probable Hall of Famer to certain Hall of Famer by adapting and learning to pull that pitch out of a stadium.” Do you want to throw lefties to him? He hit .345 off lefties this year and is 3-for-4 lifetime with two homers off of Phil Coke. OK, he is just 5-for-23 off Sabathia, but 4-for-10 with a homer lifetime off Andy Pettitte. He also is a top-notch defender. One scout thought he blocked balls better than any AL catcher. He has thrown out just 26 percent of runners, but some of that is about long delivery guys such as Carl Pavano (11-for-11 successful steals this year). Mauer was described by the scouts as having a powerful, extremely accurate arm.
THE TWINS THROW STRIKES
Any opponent will tell you a major key to beating the Yankees is throwing strikes. The Yanks were 19-26 this year when walking two or fewer times. The Twins will not promote pitchers who do not command the strike zone, and they walked 50 fewer batters than any other AL team. Yet the Yankees were 3-0 against the Twins this year in games when Minnesota pitches walked two or fewer batters. However, over the previous four seasons, Minnesota was just 12-20 against the Yankees, but 7-2 when its pitchers walked two or fewer batters. So the Twins possess the main requirement for dealing with the Yankees’ mighty lineup. But they do not meet the second requirement, which is to have dominant stuff in the strike zone the way, say, a Justin Verlander does. So the Yankees’ lefty-heavy lineup is going to see a lot of righty pitching from the Twins that will have to hit spots near perfectly to avoid major trouble.
THE DOME-FIELD ADVANTAGE
The Metrodome poses familiar problems to opponents. There are few artificial surfaces around any longer so that takes getting used to. For some reason the dirt is always hard right in front of home plate, and Twins hitters tend to excel at slamming the ball down into that dirt for infield hits. Then there is the white roof that means you can’t take your eyes off balls in the air or else you might never find them again. The Twins have crafted their teams to play there, and are 102-61 at home over the past two years. But now you also have the dome closing after this season. So there feels like there is a little magic in the place, and the noise — always a factor — should be even more deafening.
joel.sherman@nypost.com