The Twins returned to Minneapolis after their 20-1 blowout of the White Sox and handily swept the Milwaukee Brewers in the first weekend of interleague play. The streak of wins was thanks to a combination of good starting pitching and a pretty dangerous offensive lineup.

Ron Gardenhire moved Joe Mauer to the #2 spot, which makes for a typical middle of the lineup of Mauer, Justin Morneau, Jason Kubel, Michael Cuddyer and Joe Crede. Considering Denard Span is a quality leadoff hitter, it's pretty tough to go 1-6 through this lineup.

Several of those players have simultaneously been on hot streaks as well.

What can you say about Joe Mauer? As a pinch hitter yesterday in the 9th, he hit his 11th home run in the month of May and 3rd in as many days. He's batting .444 with a .530 on base percentage. To put that into perspective, he's on pace to hit 66 home runs and drive in 187 RBI on the season. Those numbers would be out of this world for a complete season. Considering he missed all of April, it makes them all the more insane.

Justin Morneau, leads the team in almost every offensive category. He's batting .341 with 13 home runs and 41 RBI. In the month of May, he's batting .370 with 8 home runs...not far off of Mauer's amazing marks.

Jason Kubel missed the weekend series with a sore knee, but came back strong with 2 hits, including an RBI single, on Monday. He's batting a healthy .340/.377/.535.

Poor Michael Cuddyer has been having a career year, but hardly anyone has noticed him in the shadow of Mauer and Morneau. He hit for the cycle on Friday night and his 8 home runs on the season, put him on pace to beat his 2006 career-high mark of 24. Cuddy leads the team in strikeouts with 31, but that's hardly a surprise.

Joe Crede also has 8 home runs on the year, despite playing in just 34 games. More importantly, he's played some solid defense at 3B. Never was the importance of his defense more evident than in the 3rd inning yesterday when 3 balls made it past Brian Buscher into left field yesterday. Admittedly, all 3 were hard hit and difficult plays to make, but I'm confident Crede would have made at least 2 of the 3 plays, which would have made for a far different 3rd inning, and possibly a victory.

The Twins are just 3-13 against the AL East this season, so with 3 games remaining against Boston followed by 3 games with the Tampa Bay Rays, now would be an ideal time to reverse that trend. The Twins currently find themselves in 3rd place in the AL Central, 4.5 games behind Detroit.