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Northern exposure

Youthful Twins strike a blow for small-market teams

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Doug Mientkiewicz has five extra-base hits and a slugging percentage of .647 through 10 games. AP

By Dan George, CNNSI.com

OK, it's not as bad as the problem college basketball faced when Duke first started winning under Mike Krzyzewski.

But if the Minnesota Twins keep this up, baseball fans are going to have to learn how to pronounce Doug Mientkiewicz's last name.

The 26-year-old first baseman, one of the stars of last year's U.S. Olympic gold medal team, entered the week batting a rousing .353 with two homers and 11 RBIs, one of several reasons why Minnesota boasts baseball's best record at 9-2.

Surely, there will be a few bumps in the road before the season is over, but right now the youthful Twins are flying high, riding a six-game winning streak that includes a three-game sweep of the defending AL Central champion Chicago White Sox.

And that makes them No. 1 in the latest CNNSI.com power rankings.

Who knows how long it'll last? But, just in case ...

It's Mint-KAY-vich.

CNNSI.com's Power Rankings
Rank	LW		Team
1	12		Minnesota Twins And the Indians thought the White Sox were all they had to worry about. OK, maybe some restraint is in order when your top starter is Joe Mays (2-0, 1.80 ERA). But, uh, weren't people saying the same thing about James Baldwin a year ago?
2	7		Seattle Mariners A-Rod returns to Seattle this week for the first time since signing his mega-deal with Texas. Ironically, he's probably gotten more people rooting for the Mariners in the last four months as a Ranger than in seven previous seasons with the M's.
3	2		Toronto Blue Jays In the grand tradition of Larry Dieker, Buck Martinez - with a little help from Carlos Delgado -- strikes a credibility blow for broadcasters-turned-managers.
4	17		Chicago Cubs That sound you hear is Tom Gordon rehabbing his right shoulder has fast as he can. Fill-in closer Jeff Fassero has six saves in six chances.
5	3		Boston Red Sox Gotta feel good when you lose the game Pedro starts and still manage to take three out of four from the hated Yanks.
6	4		New York Yankees Playtime with the Royals is over. It really would help to get Bernie Williams back.
7	8		Houston Astros Twenty-three strikeouts and one walk in 16 2/3 innings for Wade Miller. If that happened in your computer game, you'd be sending the disk back.
8	6		Philadelphia Phillies The simplest way to avoid a Larry Bowa meltdown? Stay atop the NL East.
9	5		San Francisco Giants Here's why you never worry about Barry Bonds. After one RBI in his first seven games, including an 0-for-20 stretch, he homered in four consecutive games and knocked in eight runs.
10	1		Montreal Expos Uh-oh. They've dropped four of their last five and play on the road for the next two weeks.
11	29		Cincinnati Reds You heard it here first: The non-shutout streak ends as soon as Junior comes back.
12	21		Texas Rangers Good news: Tied for fourth among all 30 teams in runs scored with 75. Bad news: No. 1 in most runs surrendered with 84.
13	13		Los Angeles Dodgers They're threatening the Mets for playing the most third basemen over the years - except they're doing it all in one season. In the first two weeks, they've had five.
14	19		Colorado Rockies In case you hadn't noticed, Larry Walker is healthy again. His six homers are just three fewer than he had all last season.
15	15		St. Louis Cardinals It's early, but Albert Pujols is already making the experts rethink their list of NL Rookie of the Year candidates.
16	14		San Diego Padres With 55 homers and 192 RBIs over the last two seasons, Phil Nevin has three and 11 already this year, along with a .341 batting average. So why won't those trade rumors go away?
17	16		Anaheim Angels The sun comes up in the east, Tom Hanks gets an Oscar nomination and Tim Salmon (.167, 11 strikeouts) slumps in April.
18	20		Milwaukee Brewers Thirty home runs in the first nine games at Miller Park. Welcome to Enron North.
19	22		Atlanta Braves Only took them two weeks to finally win a series. There are some problems here, folks.
20	11		Cleveland Indians First, their 455-game home sellout streak comes to an end. Then they get swept by the pesky White Sox and shut out by Steve W. Sparks. No, they are not having fun yet.
21	18		Baltimore Orioles Outfielder Melvin Mora and his wife, Gisel, are expecting quintuplets. All you need to know about the O's is that comes out to exactly one baby per hit for Mora so far this season.
22	23		Florida Marlins Cliff Floyd has always been good. Is he on the verge of being great?
23	9		Detroit Tigers Wait a minute. That's Tony Clark hitting .417 in April? The Tigers' Tony Clark?
24	28		Chicago White Sox When David Wells can't beat the Twins -- he had a nine-game win streak against them broken Sunday -- you know things are going bad.
25	30		Tampa bay Devil Rays Will getting cut by the Rays work out as well for Bobby Smith as it did for Herbert Perry?
26	27		Arizona Diamondbacks Sure they're old, but when 36-year-old Mike Witt is replaced in the rotation by 41-year-old Mike Morgan, c'mon.
27	26		New York Mets Suddenly, those 19 games scheduled against the Braves are starting to look real good.
28	10		Pittsburgh Pirates How much gas does Ramon Martinez have left in the tank?
29	24		Kansas City Royals K.C. fans may be finding out something about Roberto Hernandez that Devil Rays fans already knew.
30	25		Oakland Athletics The preseason AL West favorites are playing like they're back in Kansas City. What's next, the Pennant Porch?

Dan George is a senior producer at CNNSI.com.

 

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