Justin Morneau

Things can hardly seem to go right for the Minnesota Twins lately. For every win over Roy Halladay, there’s a near sweep at the hands of the punchless A’s. Often, when things finally seem to be headed in the right direction, the Twins either find themselves no better for their effort because the Tigers, too, have improved, or soon find their good fortunes have faded away.

So it was on Monday.

The Minnesota Twins' fading playoff hopes took another hit Tuesday when it was announced that All-Star first baseman Justin Morneau will miss the remainder of the season.

Morneau has been battling back pain for weeks, but a CT scan and an MRI on Monday revealed that he has a stress fracture in his lower back.

Let's get the obvious and painful truths out of the way.

The Twins have been five-and-a-half games back and hovering at .500 for what seems like all season. They haven't gotten into striking distance of division-leading Detroit and probably don't deserve to be playing in October.

But one fact that many Twins analysts, fans and especially the Tigers need to fear is that they're still in it.

June 6, 2006.

Justin Morneau and the Minnesota Twins sat comfortably in forth place in the American League Central, 11.5 games behind the first-place Tigers.

Their record was 25-32. They had lost three in a row and had been outscored by 41 runs on the season.

Fast forward to the end of the year and Minnesota not only won the division by exactly one game over the Tigers,. 

The Twins lead the division for all of one day—the day that mattered.

Going into the 2009 season, teams are looking to make it back into the post-season. Fans are anxious to get another season underway, players are anxious, umpires are anxious. Another season of good, hardcore baseball.

Each season, you have those players who come out of nowhere, teams who shock the world. Who will be the league leader in home runs? What about the best pitcher of the year?

We are ¼ of the season done already. And we have players who have come out of nowhere as well. My awards so far:

Success on the baseball diamond has its own timetable.

Witness Minnesota Twins manager Ron Gardenhire's occasional on-again, off-again experiment batting Joe Mauer in the two-hole.

The recent move has kick-started the Twins' offense, enabling them to halt a six-game slide that had many of the players questioning their choice of profession.

The Twins produced a 20-1 victory Thursday against the Chicago White Sox. Mauer, hitting second in the batting order for the first time this season, contributed a pair of doubles and a grand slam for six RBI.

The story for Joe Mauer keeps getting better.

The two-time American League batting champ spent this last offseason recuperating from surgery to remove a kidney obstruction.

Mauer then missed all of spring training—and the first 22 games of the 2009 season—with an inflamed joint in his back that kept him on the disabled list.

No one could predict whether these injuries might add up to a lost season for Mauer.

Not to worry.

It's been all systems-go for Mauer thus far in 2009.

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It looked like all it took to rejuvenate the Minnesota Twins offense was a whiff of U.S. Cellular Field.

This perception was a wrong number, as the Twins dropped an 8-0 decision to the White Sox Saturday afternoon.