Twins One Win Better Through June, Castillo Dies

The Minnesota Twins lost Monday night to the Kansas City Royals 6-1 and through June have 37 wins compared to 36 a year ago.  They have played 3 more games through June than they did last season.  Their home record is now 19-18.  Since opening in April of 2010 Minnesota now has a 168-193 record at home and that includes 53 wins in the first season.  The runs scored lately are few and the batting averages continue to go down.  The Twins had Brian Dozier lead off Monday night with .235 batting average.  I guess Manager Ron Gardenhire thought maybe Dozier could break out of his slump by moving him back to the top of the order, but it didn't seem to help.  Even Kurt Suzuki's batting average dipped below .300 heading into the game.  Remember last season when the Twins hitters had an incredible number of strikeouts.  It is starting to look a lot like 2013.  Heading into Monday Dozier had 67 strikeouts and 72 hits, Joe Mauer 62 K's and 81 hits, Josh Willingham 37 K's and 29 hits, Kendrys Morales 14 K's and 17 hits and then a few of the guys who've been at the bottom of the order are Oswaldo Arcia at 26 hits and 44 K's, Aaron Hicks with 25 hits and 42 K's and Josmil Pinto with 30 hits and 36 K's.  Heading into Monday Minnesota's team batting average of .243 ranked 13th out of 15 American League teams.  Only Seattle and Houston were lower.  The league average is .254.  Minnesota's team slugging percentage of .370 is second from the bottom in the American League, it ranks 10th in stolen bases, is 13th in Home Runs...13th in hits, 10th in runs scored.  The Twins are now 9 games out of first place and after the 5th batter in the lineup pitchers don't have much to battle against.   The team's pinch hitting batting average is an embarrasing .103 and believe it or not 7 teams in the American League have a team pinch hitting batting average under .200.  Only Houston's is worse at .053.  In need of a home run late in a close game who can come off the bench like Jim Thome used to ?  I hope the numbers turn, but things aren't looking good for our Minnesota Twins.  On a sad note, former Twins pitcher Bobby Castillo passed away Monday at the age of 59.  He had been undergoing cancer treatments according to a news release by the LA Dodgers, the Major League team he last played for.  Castillo is probably most famous for teaching Dodger pitching sensation Fernando Valenzuela how to throw a screwball and the rest as they say is history.  His best season was in 1982 for Minnesota when he collected 13 wins.  His career record was 38-40 from 1977 to 1985.  He played in two games for a Japanese professional team in 1987.