I don't care much about NBA Western Conference historical records, nor does it matter much to me if someone sets an American Football Conference mark in the NFL.
Luis Arraez vs. Aaron Judge is sole remaining Twins drama this year
Will the singles-hitting lefty for the Twins stop the home run-smashing righty from the Yankees from winning the Triple Crown?
September 29, 2022 at 5:51PM
So Aaron Judge tying the American League record for home runs in a season on Wednesday is not much of a story line from where I sit.
What is infinitely more impressive is the quality of Judge's season as a whole — and the sliver of spotlight it will shine on the Twins, who otherwise have played their way into the shadows in the last month.
As I talked about on Thursday's Daily Delivery podcast, the most compelling thing about Judge's season is his pursuit of a Triple Crown. It's one thing to mash a lot of home runs — 61, so far, to be exact — but it is quite another in modern baseball to also hit for a high average.
Those pursuits seem to be in such competition with one another in the era of launch angles and three true outcomes that Judge having a chance to be just the second person to accomplish a Triple Crown since Carl Yastrzemski in 1967 (the other was the best hitter pure hitter of this era, Miguel Cabrera, in 2012) to me is the much bigger story.
And it just so happens that the person standing most directly in the path of the towering, right-handed hitting, home run-clobbering Judge is the Twins' Luis Arraez — a contact-first, singles-hitting, throwback left-handed hitter.
Arraez entered Thursday with 39 extra-base hits, including eight home runs, this season. Judge has 89 extra-base hits. But they both began the day hitting .313.
With Judge a mortal lock to win the home run crown and being 11 clear of the next closest competitor in AL runs batted in, the batting race is the only piece of Triple Crown drama.
And it is about the only thing worth watching with the Twins the rest of the way, unless the battle for second place with the White Sox is something that interests you more than it interests me.
Only four Twins players have ever won batting titles: Joe Mauer (three of them, the most recent in 2009); Kirby Puckett (1989); Rod Carew (seven times with the Twins); and Tony Oliva (three times).
That's awfully good company for Arraez to keep, if he can prevent the mighty Judge from making history.
When he was hired after the disastrous 2016 season to reshape the Twins, Derek Falvey brought a reputation for identifying and developing pitching talent. It took a while, but the pipeline we were promised is now materializing.
