BALTIMORE — For Delmon Young, 2009 is still too fresh. He remembers those slumps vividly, as if they happened this season, and so when asked if he can recall a time when he’s felt so consistently unstoppable at the plate, the left fielder recoils.
He’s so averse to talking about his 2010 results — after a 4-for-4 night that included a sacrifice fly and a two-run homer — he couldn’t even stand to wait for the end of the question Saturday night.
“Ah, I don’t want to even think about that,” said Young, who is batting .429 with 22 runs batted in in July. “I just don’t even want to think about that right now.”
About how well you’re doing?
“(About) anything. I just want to show up every day and go out there and play,” he said. “I don’t even like you talking about it right now.”
Fair enough. The Twins certainly don’t need him to talk about it. They’re perfectly thrilled to sit back and watch a turnaround that has by now become almost epic.
Young labored much of last season, and understandably so. At 23 years old, he learned in spring training that his mother, Bonnie, had terminal cancer. When he left the team in May after she passed away, he’d been suffering from migraines the Twins attribute to the stress of Bonnie’s illness and already was in a slump that would carry over upon his return.
At one point in May, Young went 9 for 51 over 15 games and 3 for 37 in a 10-game stretch in that same span. In an outfield crowded with four
players, Young’s playing time was sparse. But when the calendar flipped from August to September, Young started a torrid stretch into the postseason, batting .340 with four homers and 18 RBIs in his last 26 games of the regular season.
Streaking down the stretch provided, perhaps, just enough of a taste of success to inspire Young in the offseason. He showed up to spring training almost 30 pounds lighter than he left the team in October, and, after batting .222 in April, Young’s results have been stunning.
He hit .313 with three homers and 18 RBIs in May, .320 with three homers and 24 RBIs in June, and is now on the verge of completing the most successful month of his still-young major league career. His .325 average after Saturday night’s game was sixth best in the American League, and his 73 RBIs ranked fourth.
“He’s having a great year up to this point,” manager Ron Gardenhire said. “He’s getting his hits, he’s hot. He works really hard, he studies the pitchers. He pays attention in the dugout to what they’re doing and what they have. He’s made a big turnaround in his career just because he’s really dedicated himself to it. It’s fun to watch.”
And what Gardenhire and the Twins are seeing, the manager said, is something they’ve seen before from really only one other player. Asked what it’s like to watch a player hit at this level, where every pitch seems supremely hittable, Gardenhire broke in.
“You mean Joe Mauer’s level?” he quipped. “Because Joe’s pretty much on everything he swings at, too. I don’t know, ask Delmon. I didn’t even do it in Little League.”
Young this season has been more dynamic than Mauer, and the Twins, with Mauer’s average down to .295 and Justin Morneau home with a concussion, have never needed Young more.
But for all Gardenhire knows about his left fielder, who at 24 seems to be blossoming into the superstar the Rays thought he’d be when they drafted him first overall in 2003 and the Twins projected when they shipped Matt Garza and Jason Bartlett to Tampa Bay for Young before the 2008 season, the manager apparently is unaware of at least one thing — Young’s superstitious streak. Has he always been this way? So vigorously opposed, though smiling slightly in his opposition, to talking about his successes?
“Yeah,” Young said. “I remember last year, 0 for 40.”
Right now, with Young’s Ted Williams-like batting average this month and his RBI total increasing almost nightly, those 0-for days no doubt seem a distant memory to the Twins.
I mean come on now.Look at their record?!Do you think it’s worth them starting Matt Garza against the Nats tonight?How do you think the game is gunna go?