Twins on the rise?

Some observations from Thursday's games.
I watched the Twins and Rangers, a 5-4 Texas victory, and came away impressed with Minnesota's improvement.
The Twinkies have had some players on a shuttle between the Twin Cities and Triple-A Rochester, and it's seeming less likely that OF Oswaldo Arcia, SS Eduardo Escobar and SS/OF Danny Santana will need their return ticket back East.
Arcia swings a mean bat. He hit a career-high 24 homers last season between the Twins and Red Wings, but his offensive strength seems to be more in driving balls to the right-center field gap. He showed nascent power in his last full minor league season in 2012 by belting 26 doubles. Rangers outfielders seemed to spend a lot of time during the series in Minnesota running back toward the scoreboard in center for balls Arcia hit.
Escobar has slumped a bit lately, but he seems to be continuing his personal trend of improvement his second time at a level. In those situations, his batting average has gone up from the .230 range to .290-.300-plus. In any event, he's a big offensive step up from Pedro Florimon, but with less speed.
Santana is listed as a shortstop too, but he had a three-hit game as the center fielder in place of heralded, and disappointing, prospect Aaron Hicks. There seems likely to be a place for Santana as long as he hits.
As a team, Minnesota will need more pitching to be a serious contender.
On the Texas side, rookie RHP Nick Martinez started, and struggled. He left in the fifth inning of a 4-4 game. He has done far more for the Rangers than they would have expected from a guy they didn't even invite to major league spring training. What he showed Thursday was that he needs his curve to be effective. Against the Twins, it alternated from not breaking the way it usually has in his brief major league career to sitting in the middle of the plate so OF/DH Josh Willingham could hit it out of the park.  Martinez has some upside, just don't expect his future to be high in a major league rotation.
While I'm on the subject of pitchers, I'm going to continue my usual distaste for the DH rule. One of the arguments for it is "I don't like to watch pitchers making outs." OK, then let's get DHs for Brad Miller and Will Venable too.
I do like to watch pitchers contributing with their bat and their glove.
Martinez helped defuse a rally by fielding C Josmil Pinto's weak ground ball in front of the plate with the bases loaded, and shoveling the ball to C Robinson Chirinos for a force out. That wouldn't seem so big, except that Texas lost a game in the series when RHP Joakim Soria couldn't field a similar grounder.
Extending the DH rule to the National League would deprive some good-hitting pitchers of having a chance to help themselves with their offense. Cy Young winner LHP Clayton Kershaw would be one of those. Also, Reds RHP Mike Leake, who has the most hits of any pitcher over a 4- or 5-year span. OK, so Brewers RHP Yovani Gallardo was a pinch hitter and not the pitcher when his 10th-inning double Tuesday when his double drove in the winning run, but you get the idea.
Pirates RHP Gerrit Cole didn't have a hit Thursday, so his average dropped to .250. What he did was follow two singles by SS Clint Barmes with sacrifice bunts, setting up two run-scoring singles by electric RF Josh Harrison in a 6-3 victory over the Dodgers. Cole's second bunt was in the seventh inning, and because he can handle a bat the Pirates ace was able to stay in the game for the bottom of the inning in his team-high fifth win.

There's a reason why it's called a twin killing

In Ron Washington's pre-game media session Wednesday, he answered a question about how the Rangers could avoid hitting into so many double play.
I discarded my notes, but following is a pretty accurate paraphrase:
"Stop hitting the pitcher's pitch. Wait for your pitch. He's going to want to keep the ball down so you'll hit it on the ground. Until you get two strikes, you have to lay off those pitches and hope you can get one up."
Those words came back to mind Saturday in Texas' game at Detroit. It wasn't a Rangers batter hitting a pitcher's pitch, but 38-year-old Tigers OF Torii Hunter making what could be considered a rookie mistake.
Detroit trailed 5-1 with two runners on base and two out in the bottom of the fifth inning.
Texas rookie RHP Nick Martinez fell behind Hunter 3-0, then threw a called strike. Just as the TV announcers were saying that with Miguel Cabrera on deck. Hunter should be looking for a fastball in to swing at and leave anything else alone, Martinez threw a down and away fastball. Hunter swung anyway, and hit a harmless ground ball to shortstop for an inning-ending force out.
So instead of coming up against a scuffling rookie pitcher as the potential tying run, Cabrera was the leadoff man in the bottom of the sixth. By that time, the Tigers trailed 8-1.
The final score was 12-2. I'm not saying that Hunter's mental mistake made a 10-run difference, but the game would have played out a lot differently if it had been 5-4 going to the sixth, with Detroit into the Rangers' bullpen already and probably not sending out their own rookie (RHP Corey Knebel) for his major league debut.
An interesting sidelight was watching Knebel battle a fellow rookie, Texas 2B Rougned Odor, to a 3-2 count. Odor won the battle with a bases-loaded triple on a day when he went 4 for 5 and drove in five runs.
I've been ridiculously absent from the blog for way too long. Let's chalk that up to a week or so of the flu, then trying to catch up from that, plus a busy schedule and more than a little bit to inertia/laziness/writer's block.
The plan is to bring you more short takes such as this one when the come up.
I'm also preparing some bigger articles, starting with my third-of-the-way-through recommendations of pitchers (and probably hitters) who have hidden value you can add to your fantasy rotation (and lineup).