Twins back at .500 with 5-3 victory over White Sox

Paul Molitor's managerial career didn't start the way he planned. Actually, it couldn't have been much worse. "Things looked pretty miserable, to be honest," he said.

But that first week on the job, the 1-6 start, the last-in-hitting, last-in-pitching identity, the left-for-dead fan enthusiasm, will soon look, the Twins hope, like faded photos in a scrapbook. It's been almost three weeks, after all.

"We knew this was possible," Trevor Plouffe crowed after the Twins won their third consecutive game, 5-3 over the White Sox, and earned a do-over on their horrendous start. At 12-12, the Twins own a .500 record for the first time since last May 24, and they are optimistic that putting the misery behind them is as easy as tearing a page off their calendar.

"We all talked about how confident we still were," Plouffe said, even after the first-week ugliness that threatened to swallow their season before it really got started. "It wasn't fun. Absolutely, I think miserable is a good way to put it. We started off 1-6, but we believed in ourselves."

There's a big difference between riding a short hot streak to break-even and transforming yourself into a winner, of course. The Twins still rank near the bottom of the AL in runs scored, aren't much better in runs allowed and have played only three games outside the AL Central. No need to save up for playoff tickets just yet, in other words.

But there were promising signs all over the diamond Saturday, from the return of Ricky Nolasco to the run production that's beginning to resurface in the middle of the lineup, and that couldn't have been said a month ago.

"In the beginning, we weren't hitting, we weren't pitching, we weren't playing defense. Thankfully, we were able to kind of nip that in the bud," Molitor said. "You start getting a couple games where you play better, and you win a few games, it just changes the mind-set of your team. We're still trying to build confidence, but obviously winning helps that."

So do good at-bats, especially from the heart of the batting order. Torii Hunter and Trevor Plouffe had only had one game apiece this season with more than one RBI, and neither was batting .250. Now they both are; each homered Saturday to erase Chicago's early lead, and neither players' contributions ended there.

"Trevor's having some good at-bats, obviously, and Torii, the last few times he's been out there, he's really grinding out his at-bats like he talks about," Molitor said. "The home run was one of those cases where he just kind of stayed with it, and the guy [Chicago starter Hector Noesi] finally made a mistake on a breaking ball and Torii made him pay. So we've got some guys who are helping balance out our production, which is a good thing."

Hunter followed his third-inning shot, deep into the left-field bleachers with a runner on base, with two more hits. Plouffe, whose second-inning solo blast landed in the Twins bullpen, also walked and, facing White Sox phenom Carlos Rodon in the fifth inning, shot a ball to right field to bring home the tiebreaking run.

"He came out there and was throwing hard — I saw 98 at least once, and his slider was disappearing," Molitor said. "Trevor chased a couple early, but then he kind of shortened his swing a little bit and was able to muscle that ball into right field. That was a big at-bat for us."

And Saturday was a big victory. A .500 team, so soon after looking like they couldn't play the game?

"We knew we had it in us," Plouffe said.