Clearance Clarence: Reasons to hop on the penultimate Twins' bandwagon

Commenter Clarence Swamptown delights you every week with his thoughts on everything from the sublime to the [redacted]. As always, the views expressed by Clarence are not necessarily those of RandBall or the Star Tribune. Clarence? ---------

I just heard something on the radio that piqued my interest. The guy on the radio says that the Minnesota Twins are currently the penultimate team in Major League Baseball. Penultimate? Like, pen-ultimate? That sounds awesome! Maybe they're like ultimate superhuman crime fighters sent here from the future to fight evil? Maybe they could touch knuckles and be like, "Penultimate twin powers ACTIVATE ! Form of: a dragon!" That would be so cool!

So I just looked up penultimate in the dictionary. Apparently it means "second to last." That's… that's not good. Sorry about that.

Despite the their recent hot streak, the Twins dug themselves such a huge hole in April and May that a comeback to playoff contention is still extremely unlikely. They are still 9.5 games behind the Cleveland Indians and Detroit Tigers. It will be difficult to make up that much ground.

That said, I am still on the Minnesota Twins 2011 playoff bandwagon. Despite the giant hole they dug for themselves, I still think they will be playoff contenders in September. Here's why:

* Mauer, Morneau, Span, Kubel, Thome, Nishioka, Perkins and Slowey are all scheduled to return shortly. For as much as we have enjoyed watching these mini-piranhas run around the last few weeks, nothing trumps having players with, you know, actual skills and talent and stuff.
* As noted almost everywhere on the internet, the Twins have played most of this season on the road. On top of that, the Twins still have 50 games remaining within their division. To date, the Texas Rangers have played more games against the American League Central than the Twins. And the Twins are completely done playing road games against the American League East. What I am trying to say is that the schedule could not be more favorable for making a run.
* If you want to sustain a long winning streak nothing is more important than starting pitching, and recently the Twins' starters have been brilliant.
* The Detroit Tigers are probably the best team in the division. They are the team to beat. In the 5 seasons Jim Leyland has managed the Tigers, they have never finished the first half of the season with a losing record. His overall first-half record is 254-187 (.576). But only once under Jim Leyland have they ever played above .500 in the second half of the season. That was in 2009, when they were just 42-40.

So add all of that up: the Twins are have a bunch of talent returning, strong starting pitching, and a favorable schedule in a soft division against perennially shrinking violets. I like those odds, but I certainly understand if you are still skeptical of the Twins' playoff chances. Their playoff bandwagon is pretty empty. In fact, I will post a diagram of what the Twins bandwagon looks like right now. As far as I know there's just me, and this toothless rube who calls into Gardy's radio show every Sunday to kiss Gardy's {redacted} and then ask him something stupid. That guy never gives up hope.

Now is the time to make your presence known. The next few weeks will let us know if the Twins are for real, or pretenders. This is a watershed moment - are you with us on the 2011 Minnesota Twins playoff bandwagon, or do you still think the season is over and they have no shot? There are no wrong answers*. We'll circle back in September and see who was right. We'll also see if Ben Revere can turn himself into a dragon. That would be so {redacted} awesome.