5 Thoughts: 10 reasons Twins are 'only' 10.5 games back on Check The Standings Day

It's a baseball holiday, and we've got 10 quick reasons the Twins are where they are, for your friends who ducked out after Opening Day but now want back in. (P.S. Minnesota is on an 8-3 run.)

In my accounting, I’ll give the Twins credit for winning 3 series in May (Royals, Cleveland, Baltimore), and losing 6 (Rangers, White Sox twice, A’s, Royals, and the Angels make-good). That’s not going to be good enough, and they know that for better days to be ahead, they need to play better today.

Let’s start with the great news and balance it out with the troubling stuff.

This column presents 5 Thoughts on the Twins as the calendar flips to June.

1. The good news is that the Twins are playing better baseball.

Lately, they’re not dribbling away late leads with regularity. They’re not getting stunning misplays from certified sure-handed fielders like Andrelton Simmons and Josh Donaldson. They’re not letting every opposing base runner to come around and score, flipping tense situations to trailing situations, leading to the back-half of the bullpen rather than Taylor Rogers. In short, they’re playing respectably for the most part, even with backups in the lineup, and that is the kin…